The Serpent's Gaze
by DictionaryWrites
Summary: The pride of a Slytherin is in his resource and cunning, and in the serpent's discerning gaze. Slytherin!Harry, assorted ships. Heavy violence. No Lord Potter, no creature inheritance, no bashing - AU plots (no Riddle diary, no Department of Mysteries, no manipulative!Dumbledore, no Horcruxes). Character-focused and plot-heavy. Cross-posted to Ao3. POV between HP and SS.
1. Year One: The Sorting

**A/N STUFF: Okay, so the main story for this series is going to be published here on FFnet, as well as on Ao3. Related ficlets, drabbles and so on are going to be on Ao3 only because I can easily put them in the right series order, and on Ao3 I'm also posting any and all manips and images I make for the series. If you want links to the Ao3 series or my Tumblr, please check out my profile, as I can't hyperlink on this. Thank you for reading, and I hope you enjoy/keep enjoying the series!**

"Potter, Harry."

Harry glances to Ron, who gives him an encouraging little grin, even though he looks about as green as Harry does, and Harry moves up to the stool at the front of the room; the Great Hall is awash with dozens of whispers and murmurs, murmurs about Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived, and Harry hates it, but he can't complain. What would people say then, after all?

He sits, and he stares out for a few seconds, wide-eyed at the hundreds of people staring at him raptly, and then the hat drops over his head and Harry sees nothing but the slightly grimy brim.

"Hmm," says the Hat's voice, quiet and yet loud on the inside of his own head. "Difficult. Very difficult. Plenty of courage, I see. Not a bad mind either. There's talent, oh my goodness, yes — and a nice thirst to prove yourself, now that's interesting…So where shall I put you?"

Harry isn't sure what to say – does this hat want an answer? From him? He didn't know he was allowed to choose. He hesitates, considering what he'd read in the copy of Hogwarts: A History Hagrid had dropped onto the top of his pile of books.

Even with what Hagrid had said about Slytherin, and Ron as well, all of them had seemed just fine. Merlin had been a Slytherin, after all, and they're ambitious – is Harry ambitious? He wants to be a good wizard, he wants-

"Oh, Slytherin would be a fine choice for you, my boy." Harry jolts at the sudden invasion of the Hat's voice into his thoughts, but he supposes he shouldn't have forgotten about it – the Hat is in his brain for the moment.

Really?

"Oh, really. You could be great in Slytherin."

Terrible, Ollivander had said, terrible, but great.

"Oh, but so, so great," the Hat assures him, and Harry does his best to suppress the shiver than wants to run down his spine. He does want to be great, he thinks. "Mmm, temper that recklessness, train that ambition– Yes, it's quite obvious now: SLYTHERIN!"

Harry smiles a little as he pushes the brim of the hat off from his eyes, expecting the same applause from the Slytherin table everyone else had gotten, but he doesn't hear any applause.

All of them are just staring at him, as if- don't they want him?

He moves off when McGonagall taps his shoulder all the same, trying to ignore the expression on her face and on the faces of the Weasleys on the Gryffindor table, each of whom look positively betrayed; after the pause, he hears one whoop from the Slytherin table, and then they're cheering, the sound deafening in comparison to the deafening silence from the Gryffindors.

Breathing heavily and glancing to the staff table, where Hagrid looks devastated and McGonagall uncertain, Harry runs to sit with the First Year Slytherins.

* * *

Dinner is awkward, to say the least; Harry offers a quick apology to Draco Malfoy, and much as he's sharp, he seems to have accepted the words, and even gave a short apology of his own. Harry doubts it's all that honest, but the other boy has made the effort, at least. Harry is glad when dinner is done with and they each walk down towards the dungeons; his head had given an awful pang of pain when he'd met his new Head of House's stare, but a few of the elder Slytherins had lightly expressed their belief that the man could read minds, and perhaps it had been an adverse affect to that.

"Potter." Harry stops, and he looks back at the girl before him; she's a tall girl, pretty and with regal features, and Harry notices the green prefect badge pinned to the breast of her robes. "I'm Afifa Lanjwani: I'm one of your House prefects. You were raised by Muggles, right?"

Harry nods his head at her crisp tone, and his eyes are slightly wide as he looks at her: Afifa does not smile. He swallows as he remembers that Slytherins supposedly take badly to Muggles, and he opens his mouth, but she cuts through it easily.

"You'll take tutelage. Quill usage is expected here. Basic wizarding etiquette, including faux pas, fashion, rough history and common thought. A guide will be on your bed tomorrow morning. It's for Slytherins only, including some House secrets, so please don't share it with outsiders. Okay?"

Harry nods, and she taps him perfunctorily on the shoulder, but somehow the touch is comforting even though her expression is grim; it's not Afifa that addresses the group of First Years but a short, broad-shouldered lad called Francois Richelieu (commonly known, judging by the teasing nudge he'd had from one of the other prefects, as Frank).

"You've been lucky." He speaks bluntly, and he looks from each of the other First Years; Pansy Parkinson is smirking, as is Draco Malfoy; Vincent Crabbe and Gregory Goyle seem completely bored, along with Millicent Bulstrode; Theo Nott and Tracey Davis stand with their arms crossed; Blaise Zabini and Daphne Greengrass, the icy prince and princess of the group, have neutral expressions on their aristocratic faces.

Harry feels out of place.

"You've been sorted into the only house with a fully funded alumnus scheme. The only house with more rooms than merely dormitories and a common room. The only house with a view of the lake - and you'll see when you get in your dorms-" He speaks with a teasing grin on his face, winking at them, but then he sobers again: "But you're also going to be hated on principle. You should note that Slytherins have a bad reputation.

People think of us as elitists, Death Eaters, dark magic practitioners, necromancers, abusers, monsters. Voldemort was a Slytherin, they say." Harry is surprised, and judging by the sharp gasps from some of those beside him, the others are as well, but Francois says it with an easy confidence.

"They don't mention Merlin. Slytherin will no more make you a villain than Gryffindor will make you a hero, but the other houses will treat you with extreme will not isolate each other. You will not bully each other. You will stand strong, and you will be united, or we'll make your lives Hell."

Harry swallows as Francois meets his gaze, just for a moment, and then he says, "Boys with me, girls with Sarah." and he breaks his stare.

Draco, Harry, Crabbe, Goyle, Zabini and Nott trail after the apparent head prefect of Slytherin house, and he leads them down a series of steps and a long corridor. Light is dim with a greenish tinge here, and it's quite chilly, but then Francois gestures to three doors, each emblazoned with burnished black letters.

 **FIRST YEAR**

 **Draco Malfoy & Harry Potter **

**FIRST YEAR**

 **Blaise Zabini & Theodore Nott**

 **FIRST YEAR**

 **Vincent Crabbe & Gregory Goyle**

"These will be your rooms until you leave school. The other houses have group dorm rooms, but big rooms aren't very good down here – we're built right against and under the lake in places, so we like to have a lot of supporting walls. In you go, lads. We'll wake you up in the morning." The corridor has each year's rooms settled together, and to their right are the second year rooms, the seventh year rooms across from them.

Draco leads the way, but when Harry steps into their dormitory he gasps, staring up at the ceiling with his mouth wide open and his green eyes wide. The ceiling has been enchanted with the same charm in the Hogwarts Great Hall, but instead of displaying the night sky above, it displays the lake, and Harry is amazed.

The lamp light is tinted green, and Harry steps towards the bed to the right as Draco strays to the left; he peers at the bed with curiosity – it has curtains, but no canopy.

"It's so you can look straight up if you can't sleep. Father told me about it," Malfoy supplies, and he doesn't seem smug about it; instead, there's an honest smile on his features, and he too looks up at the ceiling, smile fond. Harry's trunk has been set at the bottom of his bed like an ottoman, and to the side is a wardrobe. On the bed are three books: A Serpentine History, An Introduction to the Wizarding World and Basic Charms and Household Enchantments.

"What's your third one?" Harry hesitates, and then he says, "My aunt and uncle are Muggles. Diagon Alley was my first time with magical stuff. It's a guidebook, I think."

Draco lets out a smug, amused sound, and Harry turns his head, focusing on getting undressed and getting into bed, and he lies back on the bed, staring up at the empty water. It doesn't remain empty, though: after a few minutes, just as when Harry's eyelids are beginning to droop, mermaids come into view, and he stares up at them, sleepily, as they begin to dance in the green-tinted moonlight filtering from above.

Is he dreaming? Mermaids can't possibly be real-

But he sleeps before he can consider it further.


	2. Year One: Harry's First Friend

Harry is flushed a deep red as he storms out of the castle and down the path through the grounds; Hagrid had sent him a short note earlier asking him down to tea, though the script had been hesitant and slightly crumpled, as if Hagrid had done it and redone it a few times. He doesn't mind, and he's not going to complain about it: "There isn't a wizard who went bad who wasn't in Slytherin." sticks in his mind, but Hagrid invited him nonetheless.

Still though, he goes alone, and when he knocks on Hagrid's door the other man lets him in immediately, an uncertain and cautious expression fading from his overlarge features when he gets a glance at Harry's humiliated one.

"Wha's wrong?" comes the immediate question as he ushers Harry to sit down and begins to make him a cup of tea, and Harry huffs out a noise, holding back the distinct and sudden wish to cry.

"Snape." That's not strictly true – it's not just Snape. Snape had only been the end of it; that morning, Frank Richelieu had said lightly that Severus Snape, Potions Master and Head of Slytherin, tended to favour Slytherin house more than the others, but the fact remained that one oughtn't provoke him all the same.

Severus Snape had not favoured Harry at all. He'd bombarded him with questions as soon as he'd sat down, and Harry hadn't gotten any of them right – he'd only had time to study his new books from the prefects, and hadn't thought to memorize the bloody textbook.

Ron Weasley had snickered at this in Potions, and even Hermione Granger had turned her nose up at him when he'd glanced her way – the Slytherins were mostly weird, with all kinds of social rules Harry just didn't bloody know, so he'd ended up partnered with Neville Longbottom in Potions-

And before all that it had been Draco Malfoy, who had mirthfully crowed that Harry had been raised by Muggles when he quietly asked what wizarding magazines there were, (though Afifa Lanjwani had cuffed him hard upside the head, which had shut him up).

He tells Hagrid all of this in a rapid and messy fashion, rushed and emotional, and Hagrid, to his credit, listens as if Harry hadn't just been sorted into the house "all dark wizards come from".

"Well, yer in Slytherin now, Harry." Hagrid says sagely, with the same tone of someone pointing out that you had chosen to live with several dozen scorpions in your bed.

"Snakes are vicious. Er… How'd yeh get on in yer lessons?" He pushes a cup of tea into Harry's hands, shaking with anxiety or anger or he doesn't know what, but Harry drinks, and it's so sweet he almost smiles. Hagrid's trying, after all.

"They were okay. Hermione was a bit snippy with me."

"The Muggleborn lass, black girl with the curly hair?" Harry nods, and Hagrid gives a quiet hum. He looks like he's carefully considering his next words, and Harry looks up at him, sipping at his tea. "Seems to me she'll think yeh'll be a purist, Harry. Given yer, er, house an' all."

They talk for a while longer – it's only when Harry notices the newspaper clipping, from Vault 713, that Hagrid hurriedly suggests he go up to the castle again – but not before firmly insisting Harry is welcome to visit when he pleases.

At least someone at Hogwarts likes him.

* * *

Harry sits, with resolution evident on his features, across from Hermione Granger in the library, meeting her unimpressed gaze with a squared chin. He hangs his bag on the back of his chair, straightens himself up and looks right at her.

"There is no difference, you know," Hermione says in a superior tone, not looking up from the thick, leatherbound volume opened on the table in front of her. Books are stacked all around her, an essay half-completed to her right. "Monkswood and Wolfsbane are the same."

"Also known as aconite," Harry agrees. "I know that now." Granger humphs, and then Harry says, tone biting, "Not everyone has relatives that like their magic, you know. My Aunt and Uncle knew about it but kept me in the dark, then tried to lock me up so I couldn't get my letter." This sort of honesty is blunt and awkward on his tongue, difficult to admit; he's never talked about his relatives to anyone in terms of how they actually are, but he is determined to be friends with Hermione Granger, and she won't talk to him if she thinks of him as some arrogant famous Slytherin.

Hermione Granger is quiet, and she tears her gaze away from her book to stare at him, her lips parting, eyes widened. She hesitates, and then asks, "How do I know you're not lying? George Weasley says Slytherins lie all the time."

"Francois Richelieu says the Weasley twins bully Slytherin kids, and enjoy making chaos. Besides, why would I lie?" Harry demands.

"Because you want to copy my homework." Harry scoffs.

"I don't want to copy your homework! I want to be your friend. You're smart – smarter than any of the other Gryffindors, and you're actually quite nice, when you're not busy being so full of yourself." She looks furious.

"Full of myself!?"

"Oh, are you doing magic? Let's see it then!" Harry says, mimicking the snooty tone she'd used on the train, and she falters, anger fading for a minute. "I just want to be your friend, Hermione. I don't need to copy your homework." She looks at him suspiciously, and he says, "I'll beat you to the top of the class, I bet." She rolls her eyes, looking like she doesn't believe him – Harry doesn't actually believe himself, but it doesn't mean he can't foster the competitive nature of Gryffindors, and she has to be friends with someone.

She doesn't have any other friends in Gryffindor – she was alone all their first day, and even now, two days later, Ron Weasley seems to hate her and no one else seems to like her. Harry wants friends – he's never really had friends before, not for long, and she might be headstrong, but she seemed decent on the train.

Just a bit of a know-it-all, and really, what's wrong with that?

Hermione's face remains stony, and so Harry shrugs, throwing his bag onto the table and beginning to pack up his books again. "Fine. I just thought you could rise above that sort of stupid house bias. Guess I was wrong."

"Wait," she's staring at him, looking him up and down, and then she says, "You make one snobby comment, and we're done."

Harry grins. "I'll leave the snobby comments to you. You've only made six already." She looks angry again, but when he winks, her fury melts into a rueful little grin. She's got buck teeth, he notices, but she's not really ugly or anything: Parkinson seems to be convinced that all the non-Slytherin First Years are ugly, but Harry doesn't really think any of them are.

He sits down, and then, after a short pause, he puts out a hand for her to shake.

"Start over? I'm Harry. Just Harry."

There's a short pause, and then she takes his hand, shaking it with resolution in the movement. She still seems cautious, but he's caught her trust, just for a little bit, and he feels relief flood through him, relief and excitement and delight.

"Okay, Harry. I'm Hermione Granger." Her smile becomes a bit more shy, and Harry suppresses an urge to laugh out loud.

Hermione Granger: Harry's first friend.


	3. Year One: The Importance of Ideas

Harry stamps into the Slytherin common room, and he pushes past the two prefects that try and hold him back and ask if he's alright; his face is bright red and he just can't get over the complete humiliation flooding through him. He barely even feels anger, he just feels sick and embarrassed and upset.

He had defended Ron Weasley when Malfoy had insulted the state of his secondhand school books, and Ron had only spat that he didn't need any defence from a slimy snake. Well, Harry knows exactly how he's going to deal with that.

 _Dear Mrs Weasley,_

He doesn't know her first name, but that doesn't matter, not really. He doesn't need her first name, and using her first name would only make him seem older than he is. He wants her to think of him as young right now, young and vulnerable.

 _I'm sorry if this letter is disturbing you but I just wanted to_

 _thank you for giving me so much help on Platform 9 and ¾_

 _a few weeks ago, when I was on my way to Hogwarts for_

 _the first time._

 _I was really lost, to be honest, as I've never really_

 _experenced the wizarding world before and no one gave me_

 _any instructons for finding the platform (I was raised by_

 _my aunt and uncle, who are Muggles and dont approve of_

 _magic), and I just wanted to say properly how grateful I am._

 _It's unfortunnate sad that your son, Ron, and I won't be_

 _friends now, as he's taken really unkindly to how I was_

 _sorted into Slytherin and made it ovvious he doesn't want to_

 _talk to me now, but I didn't want that to efect me thanking you_

 _for your help._

 _So thank you so much Mrs Weasley! I was really lucky to run_

 _into one of the nicest witches in the train station._

 _Yours truly,_

 _Harry James Potter_

He makes to roll the parchment up to go and send, but he knocks his ink bottle over and grabs it just as it splatters on the bottom of the page. He mutters irritably, but then, struck by a sudden thought, he grabs at the quill again.

 _PS: Sorry for the ink blots. I'm still getting used to using quills_

 _and ink._

He looks down at his scrawled handwriting upon the page, and he smirks with an almost-bitter satisfaction – Harry isn't a cruel boy, not as a rule, and he doesn't want to hurt Ron, but he wants something to make him think twice about being so horrible. He doesn't want to actually be nasty to him, doesn't want to call him names or anything.

Harry really does want to be his friend, but-

"You alright, Potter?" Prefect Lanjwani's tone doesn't really offer space for him to argue with her, and she stands in his and Draco's dormitory doorway, her arms crossed over her chest and her expression rather stern.

"Yes, yeah, Afifa, I'm fine." Lanjwani frowns at him, her pretty forehead furrowing and showing wrinkles, and Harry adds, "I'm sorting it out, I promise. I'd come to you if I needed help."

This, she accepts, and she gives a simple nod, stepping back down the hall. Harry dries the parchment's ink with a charm – the little book of charms had had almost a hundred spells, and one of the easiest to learn was a very simple one for drying ink. Harry wishes Wingardium Leviosa was as easy, but he's not nearly as lucky. He rolls his piece of parchment up, tying it up, and makes his way out.

He begins to walk out of the common room, up through the dungeons and to the entrance hall, but it's there that he's stopped short, two more Weasleys appearing in front of him. Harry freezes, staring between Fred and George, and his hand goes to his wand and holds it out – strange, how swiftly that's become instinct.

He doesn't even know any hexes yet, but he supposes he could always use a cleaning charm on them. George's shoes could do with a polish.

"Oooh, look at that, George." They're both smirking, and Harry looks between them in the same hurried way he used to look between Dudley and Dudley's friends when they had him cornered, but they're years older than him – Harry doesn't think running away would do him much good.

"Oh, I know, Fred. Suddenly not so friendly, is he?" George tuts.

"Anyone'd think we wanted to do him harm." Fred Weasley is smirking at the idea, and Harry glances in the mirrored shield of the knight to his right, but there are no other Slytherins behind him – the entrance hall is, unfortunately, empty, and the twins are between him and the entrance to the great hall.

"You do do Slytherins harm."

"Harm? Not at all. The occasional prank here and there-"

"A joke or two-"

"Just a laugh-"

"I don't want a laugh, just want to go to the owlery."

"You sending a letter to your folks?" George's face is softer than his brother's as he asks the question, his smirk replaced by a gentler smile, something warmer. Harry hesitates: he can lie, and maybe the sentimental George will let him past, or he can tell the truth, and maybe they'll be too scared not to. She's their mum as well.

"I'm sending one to your mum, actually. Just wanted to thank her for help on the platform, but I guess I can add a postscript about you two." George looks as horrified as Harry had hoped, but Fred grins.

"You sneaky little sod," Fred Weasley proclaims, as if it's the biggest compliment he could ever bestow, and with a bow, not seeming intimidated in the least, he steps aside. George takes a similar step, but then he says, "We weren't going to have a go, by the way, Potter. Just wanted to see if the snakes had corrupted you."

"Seems they have," Fred says, apparently delighted by Harry's nefarious threat of writing to their mother. What a weirdo. Harry slowly lowers his wand, and he sets it into his pocket again before, with a moment's more caution, offering a small smile.

"Seems like you'd have corrupted me if I'd been in Gryffindor anyway."

"He's got us pegged, hasn't he, Fred?"

"Seems like he does, George. Cleverer than little Ronnie, anyway," Fred says agreeably, and adds, "We'd best tell Ginny about this. Maybe she'll stop being in such awe of him."

"Awe?" Harry repeats, a bit uncomfortable, but the two of them just shoot him twin grins.

"We'll see you around, Potter."

"Tell Mum we'll pick up that toilet seat."

Harry laughs despite himself, and he watches the two older boys walk away, making his way out onto the grounds.

* * *

"So, what do you think is on the third floor, Hermione?"

"What?" Harry's in a better mood when he sits down with his Gryffindor friend in the library, and she stares at him, evidently discomfited at his question.

"You know, the third floor. What do you think it is?"

"It doesn't matter." comes the firm insistence, stubborn and particular. "It's out of bounds, and it's dangerous. You heard what Dumbledore said."

"But don't you want to know?"

"It could kill us, Harry! Or worse, get us expelled."

"What if it's books, Hermione? Complicated books no one's been allowed to read for years and years?"

The ghost of curiosity on her features lasts only a fraction of a second. "Let's just do our Herbology essay, Harry."

Harry relents and picks up his quill; he'd really only been considering it after hearing a few of the sixth years discuss it over magical poker in the Slytherin common room – it's not that he really wants to know, not enough to actually go and see, but he's curious. And his mind, working as it does, flickers back to the grubby brown package Hagrid had collected from Vault 713, the grubby brown package that someone had broken into Gringotts to steal.

* * *

Harry smiles at Hedwig when she comes down to him at breakfast that morning, and he strokes her chest with two knuckles as he looks over the letter.

"Who's that from, Potter?"

"Molly Weasley," Harry answers distractedly, and he ignores Malfoy's snicker as his eyes scan over the page, noting the woman's first name at the bottom in a looping and rushed script.

 _Dear Harry,_

 _Oh, bless you for being such a thoughtful young man!_

 _I said to my husband, Arthur, that you'd been so terribly_

 _polite at the station, and how I'm sure you'll grow up_

 _to be charming! I am very sorry to hear about Ronald's_

 _rudeness, and I just want to make sure you know that we_

 _did not raise our children to be rude to anyone based_

 _on anything so petty as their Hogwarts house!_

Harry doubts this is completely true, but he won't point that out when he writes her back.

 _I will be having a word with Ronald, and I just want_

 _to assure you, Harry, that a boy as kind as you will_

 _always be welcome in our house, and if you ever want_

 _to write me for anything at all, please do!_

 _Yours,_

 _Molly Weasley_

 _PS. Make sure you eat up, Harry. You seemed so skinny_

 _at the station!_

She's a nice woman, Mrs Molly Weasley – Harry can practically feel her maternity radiating from the page of parchment, and he smiles a little despite himself – he'll keep writing to her, he thinks; she's so nice, and Harry can't help but feel warm at the idea of someone worrying about him. No one's ever really worried about him before, without counting the Dursleys worrying that he's having too much fun at school.

"Why would you want to write to that broodmother, Harry?" He and Draco are on first name terms now. Harry smirks at him, and he feels a bit guilty for having used Mrs Weasley like this; he points up. A tired, old and grey looking owl flaps tiredly into the hall, having lagged behind the rest. Within its talons, bright scarlet and exactly like the picture Harry had seen in An Introduction to the Wizarding World.

As one, the lips of the other Slytherin first years part, and all of their eyes widen. It takes a few more seconds before the first, harsh "RONALD WEASLEY! HOW COULD YOU BE SO CRUEL!?" echoes across the room.

Ron Weasley runs from the great hall with his letter held in front of him as Mrs Weasley screeches about the impropriety of being mean to a boy with dead parents, and, slightly embarrassing though it might be for an entire hall of people to hear someone else's mum worrying about him at high volume, it's worth it to see how red Ron's face is.

"Well done, Potter." Afifa Lanjwani's hand is upon Harry's shoulder, and Harry's guilt, small and niggling at his belly, fades away, replaced with a sense of pride as she smirks down at him. "That should teach the rest of you what a letter can do."

Her words linger in Harry's mind as she walks away, and he frowns a little, thoughtful, as he looks at Molly Weasley's letter in his hand. Letters can do an awful lot indeed.


	4. Year One: Letters And Alliances

Malfoy is laughing, and Harry cannot help but be annoyed by it, but he fakes a laugh with the Slytherins, holding out his hands and ignoring, for the time being, the upset looks on the faces of the Gryffindors. Hermione looks ready to strangle him with her bare hands as he says, "Ha, pass it here, Draco!"

He catches the Remembrall with ease, and then the laughter drops abruptly from his face. He holds the little curiosity out to Hermione with a stony expression on his face, and her outrage is gone in a heartbeat as she meets his eyes. She's starting to really trust him now, after a few weeks together, and she neatly drops the Remembrall inside her robes. Draco's expression of shock would be comedic if Harry wasn't trying to rub it in.

"Don't be a pillock, Draco. Longbottom's a nervous wreck, you don't need to bully him further."

Draco's cheeks go pink, but the Gryffindors don't jeer at him: they seem too shocked, in truth, by the fact that a snake stood up for one of their own housemates.

"What are you standing up for Longbottom for, Potter?" Oh, so it's like that?

"What are you bullying him for, Malfoy?" Harry just doesn't want anyone to be victimized, if truth be told, and he's not going to let Malfoy be so horrible just because the victim isn't a Slytherin. Malfoy's mouth opens, and then it closes as he considers his answer,

"Because he's pathetic, Potter."

"What's more pathetic, Malfoy? Being a bit of a nervous kid, or being a sadist?"

Malfoy's eyes widen and he scowls, crossing his arms over his chest, but then, as if only just realizing the Gryffindors are watching him raptly, he holds out his hand to shake. Draco's palm is cold against Harry's own, and they stare into each other's eyes as they shake hands.

"What's a sadist?"

"Someone who likes hurting other people."

Harry ignores the late titter of Lavender Brown after his comment is explained for her, and he shakes Malfoy's hand: it's best, after all, to present a united front to the lions, even though their disagreement is far from over. He'd read in the Slytherin handbook that stuff like this is usually continued in the common room with a prefect present as a sort of "judge", so that won't be fun, but it'll be better than if one of the prefects yells at them for showing such weakness in front of another house.

"That was so brave of you, Harry." Hermione speaks quietly to him as they walk up to the hospital wing, and Harry offers her a little grin. "I'd be careful saying things like that to me, Hermione. You might get me discharged."

She laughs at that, and she takes the Remembrall out of her robes as they come in.

"What are you two here for?" asks Madam Pomfrey in a brisk tone.

"We're just here to see Neville, Ma'am," Harry says, and he sees Madam Pomfrey's gaze flicker from Harry's scar to his crest and then back to his face again; to his surprise, her slightly irritable expression fades to a smile.

"And you too?" Her gaze goes between their differing uniforms, and her smile widens a little: she's in favour of mixing houses, then. Harry files this for future reference – most people just seem distrustful.

"Yes, Ma'am," Hermione nods, and the matron bustles away. She's quite a skinny woman, but she bustles very well. They both move forwards, then, and Neville is washing his mouth out with a glass of water, apparently gargling away the taste of the intimidating potion on the dresser beside him: SKELE-GRO, as it's appellated by the skeleton-shaped bottle.

"We brought you your Remembrall, Neville."

"Oh, thank you, Her-" Neville stops short, and Harry says nothing as she holds out the glass sphere to her house mate, trying not to be upset by the slight alarm on the other boy's face as he looks at Harry's own.

"I got it back from Draco for you. I just wanted to let you know we're not all the same." Neville's eyes look like they're about to drop out of his eye sockets.

"Oh. Um- um thanks, er-"

"Harry." He speaks before Neville can call him Potter, and to his surprise, a small smile breaks out on the other boy's chubby face.

"Oh. Thanks, Harry." Hermione is beaming, and she's so pretty when she smiles like that – she doesn't often, Harry has noticed, as she she seems to be a bit self-conscious about her teeth, but it's nice to see her smile.

"How's your arm, Neville?" Hermione asks, sitting down on the edge of his bed as Harry drops into the chair beside it, and Neville fingers the glowing sphere in his good hand as he answers.

"Oh, it's, um, it's okay-"

* * *

Harry writes AUGUSTA LONGBOTTOM with chalk on the top of the list on his blackboard, and Draco hovers in the doorway.

"What is that?"

"Neville's grandmother," Harry answers in a disconcerted tone, slightly perplexed by the referring to an old lady called "Augusta" as a that. Draco huffs and rolls his eyes, shaking his head.

"No, not Longbottom's gran – that."

With a vehement jab of one alabaster, slender finger, he points at the blackboard.

"Professor McGonagall let me have it from one of the spare classrooms. It's on my side of the room." Harry says reasonably, and he points to the invisible line the both of them had drawn through the centre of their shared room. Draco puts one hand to his face, and he looks so exasperated for a second that Harry feels like laughing. Draco's so old, for a boy of eleven.

"I know it's a blackboard, Potter. What I'm asking is why?"

"You didn't ask why, Draco."

"Potter."

"I'm writing letters."

Draco is quiet for a second, grey gaze flickering appraisingly over the board, and then he says, "I don't think that snowy owl can carry a blackboard, Potter." Harry laughs, and he doesn't miss the way Draco's lips twitch with a sort of pride at having made his room mate guffaw so loudly.

"I'm just writing names on it.I'm gonna send a lot."

Draco's ice-coloured eyes look at to the blackboard, scanning over each name written in white chalk:

AUGUSTA LONGBOTTOM

LUCIUS MALFOY

AMELIA BONES

ANDROMEDA TONKS

FLOREAN FORTESCUE

DEDALUS DIGGLE...

"What are you writing Diggle for? The man's a loon." Draco's question comes, presumably, as a preface to asking why Harry's writing to his father. Harry is guessing he's reading the worry on Draco's face right, anyway.

"I met him when I was 9. Thought I'd ask him where he buys his top hats." Draco Malfoy stares at him, his expression a mix of confusion and slight disgust.

"His top hats?"

"Yeah. He wears a red one."

"I know he- but why?" Harry taps the side of his nose, and he remembers after a second of Draco's mildly concerned facial expression that Draco is a Pureblood, and that he's not familiar with the meaning of that particular Muggle mannerism.

"That's for me to know, and you to find out."

"Hmph." comes Draco's huffed, slightly irritated response, and he begins to undress for bed as Harry sets the chalk aside.


	5. Year One: Expected Recklessness

"TROLL! IN THE DUNGEONS!" Quirrell sways, just for a few moments, and adds, "Thought you ought to know."

As he drops forwards and down in a dead faint, screams break out across the Halloween feast, and it's only when large firecrackers burst from Dumbledore's wand that everyone shuts up.

"Prefects! Lead your houses back to the dormitories immediately!"

"Ignore him! Slytherins, stay where you are."

Francois speaks loudly above the roar as the others begin to file out of the hall. Dumbledore, as is apparently common for him from what the older Slytherins have said, had apparently forgotten where their house is. The others continue to move out of the room, except one red-and-gold clad Gryffindor.

"Harry!"

"Neville, you need to go upstairs – we'll be fine in here, you guys are up in the tow-"

"Harry, Hermione isn't here. She was crying in one of the girl's bathrooms – she doesn't know about the troll!" Harry's blood runs cold as he stares at Neville's panicked face.

"Potter," comes Blaise's alarmed tone.

"Potter, don't you dare-" Malfoy chimes in, horror on his face.

"Oh, Merlin," Nott mutters, and clutches at his own forehead in tired resignation as Harry runs toward the door and slips out between two Hufflepuffs. He'd left Neville behind – and, in fairness, that's probably for the best, as Harry just needs to get one person away from the troll, and if Neville were to faint it'd be a bit hard to drag him away.

"Hermione!" He yells down the corridor, and he rushes to the bathroom at high speed, skidding on the flat tile as he enters.

"H-Harry?" Hermione's face is wet with tears as she peeks out of a bathroom stall, and Harry can't help but feel a sharp pang of pity in his chest; he's going to have a go at whoever made his friend feel this way later, but for now they need to get out. He grabs at her hand and begins pulling her toward the door, but she freezes in her place.

"There's a troll, Hermione, we have to-"

"Ha- Harry-"

"No, we have to-"

"Harry."

The stench hits him, and Harry looks up and around, where the troll stands in the doorway. It's huge, and the stinj it gives off is overpowering; its skin is grey and thick, and it must be twelve feet tall, a thick, oaken club hanging from one of its stubby hands and trailing on the stone.

"Oh, God." Harry pulls Hermione across the room at speed and she runs, stumbles, with him: the troll follows, its small, stupid head tilting to the side. Harry runs desperately through the few spells he knows, and settles on one of the ones that he can do.

"Right, okay, Hermione, listen to me – get your wand. Aim for its eyes," he tries to keep his tone reasonable as he holds up his hand, forcing himself not to shake.

"Harry, we don't know any spells-" Even as she argues, Hermione's holding up her wand like he is.

"Listen to me. Aim for its eyes-"

Both of them shakily raise their wands higher as the troll advances, steps making loud, rumbling stomps on the tiled floor and cracking it in places.

"Say Scourigify on the count of three, and then we split up, you jump to the right, and I jump to the left. Okay?"

"But what does it-"

"WE HAVEN'T GOT TIME, HERMIONE-"

"Right, right, okay, one- two- three-"

"Scourigify!"

There comes a somewhat sickening sound of soapy, invisible brushes scrubbing over bulging, yellowed eyes. The troll gives an earsplitting howl, and the two of them jump apart, running for the door as it brings the thick bludgeon it had in its hand onto the floor and throws tile and stone into the air.

Harry slams the door shut as they leave, turning the key in the lock, and then he collapses backwards – but he doesn't hit the floor. No, that would be far too lucky for Harry Potter: his back hits, instead, the scowling form of Professor Severus Snape.

"Oh, God." Harry whispers, and Snape grabs him by back of his robe, pulling him away from him and shoving him to stand with Hermione: McGonagall, Quirrell and Dumbledore are all assembled – they probably heard the yell.

"Professors!"

"We didn't knock it out. We just locked it in," Harry says hurriedly.

McGonagall huffs a sigh as Quirrell whimpers. "Severus, shall we?" Her tone seems more like the one you'd use to get rid of a stubborn dust bunny than a twelve foot troll, but Harry's Head of House doesn't bat an eyebrow. Snape adjusts his sleeves, and he follows McGonagall into the bathroom with the same air of purpose: Quirrell, with a quick murmur to Dumbledore, moves down the corridor and leans against the wall, fanning himself with one shaking hand.

"How ever did you manage to evade a troll, Mr Potter, Ms Granger?" Dumbledore's eyes are twinkling in a way that Harry can't really comprehend – is he amused? Does he find it funny that two eleven-year-olds just fought a troll?

"Er-"

"It was my fault, Professor." Harry stares at Hermione, unable to say anything. "I thought I could deal with the troll myself, so I went looking for it. Harry's the only reason I'm not dead right now."

"Is that true, Mr Potter?" Dumbledore asks, eyes twinkling with a further intensity.

"Um, n-" Hermione elbows him hard in the side, which Dumbledore politely pretends not to notice.

"Yes, sir." Harry says through gritted teeth.

"Mr Potter," Snape speaks silkily, and to Harry's complete surprise, he is smirking slightly, lip twitched up at one corner into a horrifying parody of a self-satisfied smile.

"If you would be so kind as to tell Professor McGonagall and myself- which of you thought to utilize a simple cleaning charm on the troll's eyes?"

"Me, sir," Harry says somewhat guilty, reaching up to rub the back of his neck. "I, um, I didn't know any other spells except one to dry ink and one to iron clothes, and its skin looked really thick and I didn't think-"

"Shut up, Mr Potter."

"Yes, sir," Harry breathes out, gasping in breaths after getting a bit too worried and spitting out one word after another.

"Twenty points to Slytherin, Mr Potter, for ingenuity in the face of- certain death." The way Snape says death is more than terrifying, but Harry tries to ignore it as McGonagall stands up beside him, and says crisply,

"Fifty points from Gryffindor, Ms Granger, for being so stupid as to attempt suicide by troll."

"And for being unlucky to have a Head of House that doesn't even notice when you're not at dinner, I guess," Harry says bluntly, and McGonagall looks at him with fury on her features, but she doesn't bite at him immediately.

"How dare you?"

"Mr Potter, I believe Ms Granger said she went looking for the troll after Professor Quirrell's call for alarm," Professor Dumbledore says.

"She did say that, sir. But what actually happened-"

"Harry!" Hermione protests, but Harry ignores her.

"Is that someone from your pit of lions made her cry. At least in my house we display loyalty. To the right people, that is."

He says this with a glance at Hermione, who looks furious as she stares at him. McGonagall is very, very red in the face, and Harry opens his mouth to speak further, but Snape's hand settles on his shoulder and his thumb and forefinger squeeze hard at the junction of his neck and shoulder: Harry chokes out a short noise of pain, and shuts his mouth.

"I believe I shall remove my loyal snake to the dungeons," Snape says in a light, soft murmur, and then he turns Harry with him, striding down the corridor with Harry next to him. It's after they're two corridors away and Harry knows that McGonagall won't hear him that he asks,

"So I have two weeks of detention, then, sir?"

"I believe a month will be sufficient, Potter."

"I'm sorry, sir."

"No, Potter, you are not," Snape says, with a fatigue that seems to be a bit early for barely a month into the year. "Potter, I would like to ensure that you realize your arrogance is not a quality I find endearing. In the event of a repetition, you will wish th-"

"Sir, is your leg alright?" Harry speaks suddenly as he notices something off about the other man's stride, and he looks at a tear in the other's robes; blood shows on the black fabric, illuminated thanks to the flickering firelight of the torches on the walls. Had the troll got him? Snape is horrible to him (Harry knows full well the points were a crow over McGonagall rather than a boon for him), but Harry can't not feel guilty about him sustaining an injury from the troll.

"Mr Potter, I am talk-"

"Sir, you're bleeding, are you okay? Did the troll get you? I'm so sorry, I can walk down to the common room-"

"Potter-"

"You really should go and see Madam Pom-"

"Potter!" Snape snaps, and Harry flinches back at the sharp raise in tone. He stares at the other man, his eyes wide. Snape's face is not angry, as such, but certainly curled into an irritated snarl, and then it fades into impassivity.

"Go to bed. And in the event that your essay for tomorrow is not completed, regardless of this evening's misadventure, you will instead serve two months of detention with me."

"It's already done, sir. can bring it to you now, if you like."

"One month and one week for your cheek, Potter. Go. To. Bed."

"Good night, Professor Snape," Harry says obediently, and he tries not to chuckle to himself as he rushes down to the common room: he does hope Snape's leg will be fine, though.


	6. Year One: Curiosities

Potions, even with Snape's threat in mind, is actually alright – except, unfortunately, for the fact that Hermione is refusing to speak to him. She gave one sharp comment about how could you be so disrespectful, and then ignored him for the rest of the lesson, even when he asked her to pass the daisy stems.

His other lessons, at least, all went well – until Transfiguration last period.

"What is that, Potter?" Harry looks up from his Transfiguration notes as he very neatly and carefully transcribes them from the board, peering up at McGonagall through his glasses. She really does hate him at the moment, and he hopes it wears off, because she's more than a little terrifying. She points to the notes stacked on the desk from his back, and he looks at them.

"Oh, they're just my notes from last week, Ma-"

"Is Augusta Longbottom offering you tutelage in Transfiguration, Potter?" Harry flushes pink as some of the Hufflepuffs titter, and he moves to grab the stack and put them into his bag, but McGonagall stops him short, grasping at the letter on top.

"Professor McGonagall, that's private correspondence. I must have picked up my letters instead of my notes this morning."

McGonagall ignores him, scanning the page, and Harry huffs out an irritated sound; she begins to look through the pages, and it's a stack of seven: two from Molly Weasley, and then new replies from Amelia Bones, Augusta Longbottom, Lucius Malfoy and Andromeda Tonks. He hasn't even read them yet.

"Professor-"

"Stay behind after class please, Mr Potter." McGonagall speaks cleanly, and she replaces the letter on the pile; a few of the Hufflepuffs ooh, and Harry makes a mental note to tell Ernie MacMillan where to shove it the next time he asks Harry how to perform a polishing charm – Slytherin, it seems, is the only house that teaches basic application of household charms.

He crosses his arms over his chest as he stands in front of her desk after class – this is just great. Snape hates him, and now McGonagall is going to victimize him too, as if he needs this.

"It's not against the school rules to send and receive letters, Professor," Harry says as soon as the last Hufflepuff has reluctantly filtered out of the room.

"Mr Potter, why are you writing letters to these people?"

"With respect, Professor, that's none of your business."

McGonagall takes the letter from Mrs Longbottom, opening it to the second page, and Harry notices something he hadn't when he'd opened it from the envelope – a photograph pinned to the front, marked 1978 on the back. He puts out his hand immediately, and she presses it to his fingers: an older couple, labelled Frank and Alice, with a man Harry recognizes as well as his own reflection.

The photograph moves, and Harry sees the woman – Alice – repeatedly lean away, laughing, as his father shoves Frank in the chest, the motion repeated every few seconds as the photograph loops back. His chest aches to look at it, to see his own father laughing – he's so young, how old must he be? 18? 19?

Two years before Harry was born – how old would he be now? In his thirties?

"That's my dad. I do look like him." He whispers the words, and he's surprised to hear his own voice come out thickly.

"Yes, James and Lily knew the Longbottoms quite well. They were a few years above them at school."

McGonagall is looking at him with an oddly pinched expression on her face, and Harry can see her eyes are shining slightly. She breathes in, and then she says,

"Potter, your father was one of my Gryffindors. I taught him while he was at school. I quite understand if you are reaching out, hoping to find more information about he and your mother. You are- welcome in my office, if you wish to talk about them."

Harry stares at McGonagall, just for a few seconds, and then he says, in a very small voice, slightly surprised, "Thank you, Ma'am."

McGonagall gives a curt nod, and Harry moves towards the door, but then he turns back, hesitating for a second before asking, "What did my mum look like?"

She frowns. "Didn't you live with your mother's sister, Petunia?"

Harry debates it, for a second – it's embarrassing, to talk about his aunt and uncle, but on the other, he might not get sent back there if people know how horrible they are. "I was never allowed to talk about my parents, Ma'am. Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon said they were freaks who died in a car crash. I never knew what either of them looked like."

He watches lines tighten in McGonagall's face, watches the furious red that had come about when he'd insulted her last week come to her cheeks. Maybe he won't have to go back to the Dursleys in the summer after all.

"She was a short girl, not much taller than you. Beautiful red hair down to her shoulders, green eyes just like yours. She was ever so pretty – James was infatuated with her even at your age."Harry smiles a little, giving a slow nod, and McGonagall watches him with a sad expression on her face, but she doesn't look angry at all now.

* * *

Harry whispers Extinguo from where he crouches against the next staircase, watching the lamps either side of the Fat Lady dim a little, and then he really carefully moves down as she lets out a loud noise of complaint.

He hears the girls walk up the stairs – all three of them are chasers on the Gryffindor Quidditch team, and he's seen them zoom about at practice under the command of Oliver Wood.

"Caput Draconis!" One of them, a strikingly beautiful girl Harry knows is named Angelina, gives the password cleanly, and Harry smirks. He knows where all the common rooms are, now – the Hufflepuffs are by the kitchens, the Ravenclaws are up in another tower, and the Gryffindors are behind the Fat Lady: most importantly, of course, he now knows the password.

"Your torches are looking a bit dim, Ma'am." Harry speaks politely as he looks up at the Fat Lady, having casually walked down the stairs he'd been hidden on while she'd been looking the other way, and she huffs at him, crossing her arms over her chest.

"You should go down to the dungeons, child, where you belong."

"I just wanted you to know, if you'd like me to fix them before I do."

Harry holds up the box of matches he uses for Potions class, and her frown falters a little as she shifts in her painted seat.

"Very well. I'd be grateful." She lifts her chin, looking down at him with an aristocratic arrogance, and Harry stands on his very tip-toes to set the match against the torches and get them flaming properly again. With that, he flicks the match through the air to extinguish it again.

"Thank you."

"You're welcome. And- Ma'am?"

"Yes, child?"

"Caput Draconis."

"You sneaky little-"

The rest of her insult is cut off as she swings backwards, and Harry neatly steps into the common room, walking directly up to another member of the Quidditch team and tapping him on the shoulder. No one really glances his way, and Wood looks completely surprised as he turns his head and stares at Harry.

"Excuse me? Captain Wood?"

"Who- what in the Hell are you doing in he-"

"I just want to talk. It's about Quidditch."

Wood grabs him by the back of the robes and begins to haul Harry out onto the grand staircase again, infuriated by the way he grins up at the older man. Wood scowls at him.

"How did you-"

"I want you to teach me how to play Quidditch."

"Ask Flint." Harry laughs, making Wood look started.

"Flint will want me on the team. I don't want to be on the team. You don't want me on the team." Wood stares at him, his thick brow furrowing. He's a burly lad, broad and well-built, but Harry isn't intimidated – he can see the catch in the boy's face; he's heard Marcus Flint talk about how passionate Wood is about Quidditch. Harry is intent on banking on that obsession.

"Why don't you want to be on the team?" Wood asks, as if he's asking why Harry doesn't want to keep breathing. Harry shrugs his shoulders. Quidditch looks like a fun game, but the boys on the Quidditch team are built like giants, and he's seen the way the Bludgers whistle through the air at practice. Even if he'd be unlikely to die, one of those things would probably hurt.

"Why don't I want you on the team?"

"Madam Hooch says I fly like a demon." Wood crosses his arms over his chest.

"Talk, snake."

"You take Hermione and Neville aside, under guise of giving them extra lessons. I join in because we're friends. You teach me the rules, and I don't join the team. You don't narrow your chance at the cup even further."

"Why?" Harry grins.

"Does it matter?"

"I want this in writing." Harry shrugs.

"Okay." Wood scowls, just a second more, and then he puts out his broad hand: Harry shakes it, offering a grin in return. He then says,

"This is secret, though. I came up here to ask about my crush on Angelina if anyone asks."

"You have a crush on Angelina?" Wood asks, stumped, and Harry frowns at him. Angelina is pretty, but-

"Wood. I'm eleven."

"Right, right. Well. See you, Potter. Granger will let you know."

* * *

"Hello, Hermione," Harry says reasonably as she storms over to the Slytherin table, and he smiles at her pleasantly, looking up from his conversation with the Bloody Baron – they're sat together towards the end of the table. He'd wanted to ask the man a few questions for his History of Magic homework and, for reasons Harry quite understands as he considers the silver bloodstains down the Baron's robe, no one had much wanted to sit with them.

"I thought you weren't speaking to me."

"I'm not doing it! I won't do it."

"It'll help you be more comfortable on a broom," Harry points out.

"I don't want to be comfortable on a broom!"

"You want to be uncomfortable?" The Baron speaks in a scathing, rasping tone, but Hermione, to her credit, is a bit too angry of Harry to be scared of Slytherin's bloodied house ghost.

"I don't want to be on a broom at all, thank you very much!" The Baron looks surprised, arching his eyebrows and leaning back slightly, and Hermione turns back to Harry.

"What about Neville? Neville's gran would probably be really happy with him if he could ride a broom properly."

Hermione crosses her arms over her chest. "It's just for Neville."

"Just for Neville, totally." Harry grins at her, and after an exasperated huff, she offers a slight smile.

"You're an idiot."

"Lucky I've got you then, isn't it?"


	7. Year One: Holiday Excitement

The first Quidditch match of the year is the day after Harry's first lesson with Wood, and subsequently he views it with far more knowledge than he would have – it's an exciting game, Harry thinks as he watches the blobs of green and red shuttle past each other – as Seeker, bizarrely, is Gryffindor's fifth year prefect, Percy Weasley.

He's surprisingly good on a broom, and given how uptight he is, Harry had never expected him to be so flexible, but he moves easily with the wind and dodges the Bludgers sent his way by the Slytherin team.

"I didn't know your Weasley could fly!" Harry says, impressed.

"He's not my Weasley, Harry," Hermione retorts disapprovingly, and Harry laughs – she spends a bit of time with the boy, as he's often very willing to help her with her homework, and Harry does like him. Officious, certainly, and surprisingly easy to fluster given how authoritative he tries to be, but he's decent.

Better than Ronald.

"And the Weasleys all play Quidditch together at home," Hermione supplies. "They've got a little pitch out by their house."

"Mrs Weasley never mentioned that! With Bill and Charlie, then?"

"Must be."

Harry watches as Fred and George speed through the air together, hitting twin Bludgers away from their elder brother, and both of them pat him on the back as they speed off again. Percy, though, flighty as he is on a broom, just isn't as good as Terrence Higgs, the Slytherin Seeker, and he catches the Snitch. The scores end up with Gryffindor almost winning, with Slytherin only ten points ahead after the Snitch – Harry still can't quite comprehend that bit of the points system, but it doesn't matter.

"That was quite short."

"God." Hermione complains. "What, they're usually longer?"

"Hours longer, they can be."

"Ugh!"

Harry nudges her playfully, but Hermione just shakes her head as they both move to stand – they'd sat together on one of the stands unofficially designated to the Ravenclaws, wanting to settle on some neutral ground, and Padma Patil taps Harry's shoulder.

"You think you're gonna win this year, Harry?"

"Flint says Gryffindor's crippled without their old Seeker, Charlie. Dunno about the other teams though – is yours any good?"

"Not sure! Never been one for Quidditch, really," Padma says reasonably, and Harry does like her – the Ravenclaws are perfectly apathetic where house rivalry is concerned, mostly, and it's certainly easy to talk to her than one of the Gryffindor lads or worse, one of the Hufflepuffs.

Harry's looking at her when he notices the wood of the stand's wall crack behind her, and he grabs Padma by the front of her robes, shoving her backwards: she lets out a harsh scream, but her hand grasps at the bench behind her as the part of the stand he and Hermione is on begins to crack underneath them.

The floor of the stand's box, built as it is about twenty feet up, is beginning to segment beneath their feet, separating and sectioning off the corner the two of them are stood on. "Hermione, get over there!" Harry yells, and he grasps at the proffered hand of Penelope Clearwater, a Ravenclaw prefect, as she tries to pull he and Hermione back. Hermione scrambles onto a safer panel, but Harry's feet are, inexplicably, stuck to the wood underneath him as he tries to struggle to one of the intact floorboards, and he loses hold of Clearwater's hand as he begins to tumble backwards with the piece of wood under his trainers.

He closes his eyes tightly as he starts to fall down to the ground, feeling the air whistle past his ears as he gets that sickening falling sensation – he just keeps going, Merlin, how far up is he? He's going to die for sure-

"Arresto momentum!" Harry feels himself freeze in midair, and he cautiously opens one eye, seeing himself four feet above the ground – everyone is ridiculously silent as they all look at him, and Harry, weakly, with a glance at Professor Snape, says,

"Alright, sir?"

"Anything broken, Potter?" Snape asks, looking at him in the same impassive, slightly hateful manner he always does.

"Just my fall, sir." Perhaps an inappropriate answer to such a brusque question: Snape stares at him, and looks like he's resisting the urge to roll his eyes.

"Finite incantatem," Snape says, and Harry drops unceremoniously onto the ground. He gets to his feet, and a cheer erupts through the stands, Harry looks to Snape, and he claps himself, enjoying the way his Head of House's scowl deepens. He storms off, and Harry's left laughing a little giddily as Hermione rushes over to him, grabbing him by the arm to look at his face.

"What happened? I know you took Penny Clearwater's hand, but-"

"My feet were stuck to the floor! I dunno, someone must've jinxed me-" Harry says, shaking his head as he looks up to the splintered stands, where Padma Patil is still sat down, breathing heavily and holding tightly to the bench underneath her. Harry gives her a little wave, and she returns it awkwardly, nodding her head. If he hadn't pushed her back, she'd have fallen straight through the gap in the stand.

"Potter! Are you alright!?"

"Oh, Madam Pomfrey, I'm fine – Professor Snape caught me before – okay, I'm going with you, aren't I? See you later, Hermione!"

He resigns himself to it, and lets Madam Pomfrey drag him aside for a few diagnostic spells. He likes her, though, and manages a crack or two asking if this is how Quidditch matches always go, but she doesn't find that funny at all.

* * *

Harry is in a good mood as he walks down to the dungeons – it's only a few days before the Christmas holidays start, and he's just had his third session with Oliver Wood, Neville and Hermione. The Weasley twins had even been kind enough to lend their brooms to Neville and Hermione (Harry suspects this kindness will come with a later price for Harry to pay, but he's okay with that, as Neville and Hermione had been far more confident on brooms that didn't shake ominously with their weights). And Harry is actually quite confident of Quidditch, too – Oliver had let him have a go at catching a snitch, and after seeing the way he'd bulleted after the thing on Oliver's Comet 260, lithe body moulded to the wood, he had whistled and remarked he was very glad of their deal.

The last few days have been uneventful – they'd had a few conversations over dinner about what had happened with the stands, but Dumbledore had insisted it must have been an accident and that the protective warding on the wood had been lost. Draco had grimly said that his father had recommended the school's temporary wardmaster himself, and that she'd never be so STUPID as to put iffy wards in place.

"Means someone's trying to kill you then, Potter." Blaise had said unconcernedly, and around his glass of pumpkin juice, Harry had given a casual nod.

"Seems that way. Bit how I started out, really, isn't it?" Draco had sniggered at that, and Harry had remained in a good mood despite the somewhat unsettling idea.

"Potter."

"Professor Snape, sir?" Wordlessly, the dour Potions Master holds out a sheet of paper on a clipboard: a list of the Slytherins who'll be staying during the holidays. The list is upsettingly short, but Harry takes it anyway, scrawling his name on the sheet. "Thank you, sir." He speaks politely, but Snape's scowl does not budge.

"How'd you know I'd be staying?" Professor Snape walks past him, and Harry honestly wonders why he bothered. Much as Snape had saved Harry's life, he remains as sadistic as ever in Potions – subsequently, it's Harry's best subject, as he has to make so much effort to avoid getting the Ts Snape so obviously enjoys giving him. He makes his way down the corridor and towards his office, and, with an exasperated huff of a sigh, Harry steps into the Slytherin common room.

He has letters to work on tonight – a dozen of them, and he wants to send them off by tonight, before the sun goes down.

"I don't get why you do it." Nott says with an unsympathetic shake of his head as he looks at the stack of three already-written letters on his desk, and the waiting, blank papers that are still to be written.

"I'm well-connected, Theodore. What can I say?"

"They only write you back because you're the Boy Who Lived." Draco says, pretending he isn't as green as his robe crest. Of course, as the scion of the Malfoy line, they'd all probably write him back too, but he hasn't so much as tried.

"So? The important thing is that they write me back." Harry knows full well this is the reason some of them write him back, but it's not the only reason – he has three photographs of his parents pinned to the wall beside his bed, now, in amongst photos of all sorts of people – Harry's paternal grandparents, some aunts, some uncles, even a few cousins. They're all dead now, of course: they'd been killed in the war for being on the wrong side, and now Harry is firmly an orphan.

It doesn't feel so bad, though, with all the stories some of them are telling him – Augusta Longbottom's son had been friends with his dad, and she'd gone to school with Harry's grandmother, who'd apparently been a devil at wizarding poker, even at Harry's age.

He'd never known anything about his dad's side of the family at all, except that the Dursleys despised them, but knowing that there were so many good wizards? Light wizards, war heroes?

It's a nice thought, and he smiles a little as he glances to the wall – the photographs he has are all scattered against the wall where he'd stuck them with Spellotape, and beside them is a big piece of parchment he'd started drawing his family tree on. Loads of people knew his mum, but apart from knowing her parents were Muggles, no seemed to know much more about them.

Harry doubts he'll want to ask Aunt Petunia much about it – she doesn't even have any photographs of them up.

Harry has a good thirty five people on his list now, and it's nice to have people who'll answer his questions about his house and his family and his wand – Mrs Longbottom even HAD given him some help on his Transfiguration homework, and he'd managed to turn a match into a needle in his lesson recently.

For tonight it's letters to Molly Weasley (Harry's primary penpal, who tells him everything from charms to fix a scraped knee to how to point a brick wall), a journalist at the Daily Prophet named Yolanda Hartbrook, Florean Fortescue, Gideon Flourish (no relation), Lucius Malfoy (he likes to hear about Draco, mostly, but he dispenses hair tips, as well), Mr Ollivander (Harry had wanted to know some more about his wand, and he'd been ecstatic to comply) and a few others: at the bottom are a few owl order forms to order gifts for Draco and the other boys, as well as for Hermione, Hagrid and Neville.

"Alright, Harry?" Hagrid greets him merrily as Harry begins to walk down to the owlery, and Harry grins at him.

"Alright, Hagrid?" Hagrid has long since overcome his issue with Harry's housing (at least where it concerns Harry himself, though he's very cautious over his fellow snakes), and Harry's even been down to tea with him the once, with Hermione.

"Come down for a cuppa before you head up the castle for yer tea, alrigh'? I got summat to show ya!"

"Will do!" Hagrid's show-and-tell, it turns out, is a book about magical creatures, and Harry takes it readily, beaming at the other man. "'Cause ye've been askin' about magical stuff an' that-"

Harry throws himself forwards and, as best as he can given Hagrid's tremendous height and bodily girth, hugs him tightly: Hagrid grins down at him, patting his back ever-so-gently with one massive hand. The book is battered, and Harry guesses secondhand from the village, but it's a sort of bestiary, and it looks much more affectionate than Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them, its title, written in fading silver script, is simple: Living Wonders of the Magical World.

Harry takes it with him to dinner, though he knows to sit on it and not to try reading it at the table: Afifa had cuffed him hard upside the head when he'd done that the once – strict dining etiquette is to be observed at evening meals, without exception.

"Who's staying over the holidays, then?" Afifa speaks with authority (Harry has never known her to speak without authority).

"Me," Harry says, and the only other person to say yes is a rather sad looking fourth year. Cheerful, really.

"You two are just stuck with me, then."

"Aren't you going home?"

"My parents are refurbishing the shop. If I go home, I'll have to help," she points out, and Harry nods his understanding.

"Sneaky." Afifa winks at him, and Harry grins, turning back to his food.

Christmas time, Harry discovers as the days go on, is a very colourful affair at Hogwarts. There are twelve massive trees in the hall, all decorated, and Flitwick was delighted to teach Harry a charm for making baubles when he asked if he could help. It was surprisingly cathartic, actually, hanging them regularly along the tree, and Flitwick had given him three points to Slytherin for his technique.

Harry suspects he actually earned the ten points for cutting Flitwick's decorating time in half, but he didn't point this out, and instead thanked the Charms professor with a smile.

A tree had also been settled in the middle of each of the Slytherin dorm rooms, as Harry was delighted to discover when he went to the common room that evening. It had been put in the very centre of his and Draco's imaginary line, back against the wall.

Each of the dorms, Harry has discovered, are the same, and all of them are usually kept symmetrical; his and Draco's beds are in opposite corners, furthest away from the door, with their trunks set at their foot like ottomans. Directly across from each of their beds is a wardrobe, and beside the beds, small mahogany tables with drawers for cards and assorted things.

The tree, now put well into place, sits between their beds, but it is very bare, but for a silver envelope neatly set into the branches.

"What, are we meant to decorate them ourselves?"

Draco complains as he comes in behind Harry, and Harry reaches out, taking the envelope and reading the note within aloud.

 _First years are expected to decorate their own trees_

 _in order that they learn appropriate methods and_

 _charms for use in later life. A prize will be given_

 _for the best tree._

Following is a list of three or four charms – one Harry recognizes for tinsel (Argentum Lux), and another for glitter (Caelum Micat), but the other he doesn't recognize.

"What's stellaris in Latin?" he asks, and Draco reaches for the Latin dictionary on his bedside, encouraged for independent study, glancing through.

"Stella is star. It's probably for the top of the tree." They set out together, starting with the tinsel. Draco puts the star on the tree as Harry says "Cruso!" and begins to set baubles (which aren't actually baubles like Aunt Petunia had, ceramic or plastic, but silver, shining balls that are warm to the touch and wriggle if you poke them) on to compliment the black tinsel.

"Oh, splendid!"

"Flitwick showed me." Draco nods, and he notes the incantation down in the spell journal on his bedside table – Draco had a habit of writing almost everything down in diaries, and Harry suspects, based on the methodical way Mr Malfoy writes his letters, that his father does the same thing.

Harry stands back, then, and they grin together at the tree. It does look good, but it's missing something – it looks a little too orderly to Harry, too much like the picture perfect trees Aunt Petunia had always decorated, and he wants to add to it. "Have you got any green ink?"

Giving him a perplexed and curious look, Draco retrieves a bottle, and Harry hands him a piece of parchment as he begins to cut another with a knife, instructing him to brush over the parchment until it's green.

"What we do, is we take fat bits of parchment like this, and fold them into sort of ovals with the flat bits together, yeah, and then stick them with Spellotape so it's green, white, green white..."

Draco hums thoughtfully, and by the time they're done both of their hands are COVERED in green ink, but they have five of them: fat little paper flowers that hang from the tree on twine. "Where'd you learn that?" Draco asks curiously, though he seems impressed enough as they walk down to the bathroom to wash their hands. He's not nearly so rude now – Harry suspects because it's not so easy to be a pillock when you share a room with the victim.

"Muggle primary school." Harry speaks with confidence. "At Christmas they teach all sorts of crafty stuff."

Draco hesitates, lips pressing together: Harry is pretty sure of his internal dilemma. On one hand, it's Muggle stuff, but on the other, he likes the decorations. "D'you know any others?"

"A few..." He's intentionally evasive, for now, but he'll tell Draco how to make paper angels before he goes home for the holiday – Malfoy will like that. "Oh, wow. Frank, we've a winner.

It's not Afifa, but a thin, beautiful seventh year boy that calls down the hall: his voice is mellifluous, and Harry beams at him as Francois and the other prefects all gather at Harry and Draco's door, the other first years pushing under their arms to get a look.

"Oh, those charms weren't on the sheet!" comes Pansy Parkinson's shrill complaint, but the handsome boy just tuts at her.

"Now now, Parkinson: we were rewarding you for creativity, not for reading."

"What's the charm for those paper things, Malfoy?"

"Oh, they weren't magic," Harry supplies. "Just paper, ink and Spellotape."

There's laughter amongst the prefect judges, but it isn't unpleasant – they all look very pleased, and Harry and Draco are rewarded with wrapped gifts. They turn out to be green, flannel dressing gowns decorated with snakes, and Harry laughs with delight, trying his on immediately.

"Oh, they move!"

"Course they do." Draco tuts at him as if it's obvious, but even he is grinning at his Christmas prize - he's very proud, Harry thinks, and it's something to tell his mum and dad about when he gets off at the platform.

"Merry Christmas, Potter!" Draco says with fake bile in his voice as he runs down towards the entrance hall, and Harry waves him off, grinning as he returns the sentiment.

"Merry Christmas, Malfoy! See you in January!"

Even with the joking, though, he's a little sad to see the other boy go – it's weird, sleeping in his dormitory with no one else across from him, but it can't be helped, he supposes. Hermione and Neville have gone home for the holidays as well – the only friends Harry has around (if "friend" can be used so loosely) are the Weasley twins.

Shame, really. He almost thought Christmas would be a little less lonely this year.


	8. Year One: Suspicions and Surprises

Harry is quietly pensive as he settles in the common room, curled up in one of the high-backed, winged armchairs by the fire. It's actually quite cool in the Slytherin common room, as a rule – the dorms are enchanted, he thinks, to be pleasantly toasty, but the corridors and the common room are warmed only by the fireplaces, and he, Afifa and Gerald Philips (the sad fourth year) are all in the same place.

He thinks about a dozen things – who had destroyed the Ravenclaw stands and why, what that grubby little package from the Gringotts vault was, why it must be stored on the third floor corridor, when lunch is-

"What time is it?"

"Twenty past ten. Lunch is at twelve thirty," Harry huffs. For Christmas Eve in a magical school, nothing much is happening. He's bored.

"No homework?"

"Done it." Afifa looks up from her book, and regards him with obvious amusement on her regal features.

"It's three days into the holiday."

"Everyone's gone home," Harry supplies by way of explanation, and Afifa laughs at him; it's strange, really, that she can look so smug and superior even while laughing. She then says,

"Right, you know where the Hufflepuff common room is?"

"It's by the kitchens," Harry supplies automatically.

"Have you been into the kitchens?" Harry shakes his head, and Afifa nods her own. "You know that painting with all the fruit? Go up to it and tickle the pear."

"Tickle it?" Harry repeats sceptically, and Afifa nods her head. Harry doesn't need telling a third time – he's bored, and he really does want something to do. He grabs at his wand and pulls on his boots, and then he moves down the corridor, Slytherin scarf thrown around his neck to stave off the even icier cool of the dungeons as a whole.

He finds the painting, and he peers at it, interested. He then reaches out and tickles the pear – it giggles, wriggling under his finger on the canvas, and then it morphs into a door knob of the same speckled green. Harry grins at it, and he turns the handle, peering cautiously inside.

The room is huge. The ceiling is obscenely high, and Harry steps inside, he notes the five large tables – the room looks about the same as the Great Hall, and all the tables are identical as well, with the four houses and the staff table at the top. He's fascinated as he peers around, looking at all the stovetops and counters around the edges of the room and, wearing what appeared to be teatowels, dozens and dozens of weird little people.

"A student!" comes an excited whisper, and a few of them rush forwards, ushering Harry to sit on a little stool directly in front of the fire: there are hundreds of them, there must be, and each of them has leathery skin and big, wide ears and eyes. Harry sits down, obediently, and he peers at them.

They peer back.

"Is there something sir needs, sir?" One little person talks in a high, squeaky voice, and Harry replies, a little awkwardly,

"Er- one of my prefects sent me here. 'Cause I was bored. This is the kitchens, right?"

"This is being the Hogwarts kitchens, sir!"

"And we is the Hogwarts house elves, sir!"

"Oh, you guys are house elves!" Recognition passes across Harry's features as he looks at the little wrinkly people, taking in the way they're, er, dressed. Sort of. His book had detailed what house elves were, but there had been no pictures and he'd not made the connection – they were all ever so small. Sensing his apparent excitement, there are titters amongst the elves that linger with him – about a half dozen or so – as the others go off to continue working.

"Are those your uniforms, then?" he asks; he'd read that house elves didn't wear clothes, and that giving them clothes was a way to dismiss them. Harry knows better than to talk about house elves with his house mates: a lot of them have them in their homes, and he's not entirely comfortable with the whole arrangement. Hogwarts has more house elves than anywhere else, though, and they all look well-treated.

"Yes, sir! These is being tea towels, sir, and they's very nice!" One of them gives a little twirl and shows off their tea towel, and Harry grins at them.

"Does sir want some food?"

"Or something to drink?"

Harry hesitates – Afifa had sent him, but he doesn't want to ruin his lunch. "Could I just have a cup of tea, please?"

The assent comes swiftly, and two of them bustle off, returning with a cup of tea and a digestive on the side of the saucer. Harry thanks them gratefully, and then he begins to ask questions, which one of the elves dutifully answers as the others go back to work: Hogwarts traditionally offers home to all sorts of elves, who are born into a Hogwarts line or who are dismissed from other places, and they make all the food and clean all the rooms.

Harry listens with fascination, and when it's time for him to go they all say goodbye excitedly and readily assure him he's welcome to come back – they've very nice, house elves. They're all so earnest and pleasant and nice.

"Oh, look at this, Forge!"

"I know, Gred: it's little Harry Potter!"

"I knew you two were dull, but I didn't realize you forgot your own names." Fred and George laugh as they lean against each other – Harry can't help but be glad, for a moment, that they're built more stockily than Percy is, as they're not nearly so tall as they could be. He's not really all that intimidated by the twins, but he imagines he'd be a bit more so, if they were tall.

"And what were you doing in the kitchens, hmm?"

"Prefect Lanjwani sent me."

"She the pretty Indian girl?" George asks, and Harry arches an eyebrow.

"She's Pakistani."

"And what did she send you for?" Fred's smirk is disturbingly wide, and Harry glances between him and George, who looks about as ready for mischief.

"I was bored."

"We could alleviate some of that boredom, Potter."

"We could. Maybe we could-"

"Play a little-"

"Game."

Ordinarily, Harry would just walk away, but he is bored. The twins are difficult to work out, most of the time, but they don't really aim any of their mischief at him, so he's just fine with them for the time being.

"Alright. But remember that I write your mum regularly."

"Ah, but-"

"And I wrote Charlie last week about dragons for History of Magic."

"You sneaky little sod," Fred says, voice full of admiration and, Harry suspects, a little bit of pride. Their parents are in Romania at the moment, visiting Charlie, who happens to be a dragon tamer – it's not true, of course. Harry's never sent a letter to Charlie Weasley in his life, but they don't know that, and Harry knows it's best to lie than to let Fred and George have free rein.

"I wish we'd got you," George says despairingly, shaking his head, and Harry grins at him. "The damage we could have done!" He and Fred share sighs and little, upset moues, and then Fred moves back to business.

"What sort of game?"

"Snap?" George suggests.

"Gobstones?"

"Chess?" Harry regards the both of them sceptically as they swap back and forth, but there's no point playing a normal game with the twins.

"You could take me up to your common room."

"Doesn't sound like much of a game."

"Slytherins really don't play games, do they, Gred?"

"The game would be sneaking me past your brothers." Fred and George share a look, and then they give each other twin smirks. He's got them interested now: Fred and George appreciate chaos, and Harry's all too happy to allow himself to be involved, if it'll get Ron and Percy's feathers in ruffles.

"That does sound like fun."

"But what's the prize?"

"If I get caught before lunch, I'll give you whatever." Fred and George raise their eyebrows as one, and look pleased. Harry already owes them one favour, but that one's not official, and Harry's certain they like the idea of having a Slytherin in their debt, even if he's only a first year.

"And if we go down to lunch and no one's noticed?" Harry goes quiet for a few seconds, trying to think – what would he want that the Weasley twins have? They're third year, pranksters- He doesn't just want a list of spells, because he can get those anywhere.

"I want you to tell me three shortcuts – actual portrait passages or secret ways around school, not just quick ways to go." Fred and George share a thoughtful look, apparently considering the wager, and then they give a nod. They actually seem to really approve of his price, judging by the appraising expressions they exchange when they think Harry's not looking.

Harry folds the collar of his outer robe inward to hide the green lining and quickly combs his hair down, shoving his tie into his pocket and hanging his glasses on the inside of his inner robe. His vision's terrible, but he'll be able to make out the stuff closest to him if he squints. With that, he follows the twins upstairs, and they settle right by the fire, beginning to play Exploding Snap together.

Across the room, Percy Weasley concentrates on the book on his lap, and concentrates on that rather than the chess game he has between him and Ron. Ron is complaining, Harry can hear, about having no one else in the dorm with him, and Harry feels a pang of sympathy, feeling a twin loss with Draco gone home for the holidays, but he can't feel too sorry for him.

* * *

"What sort of head boy are you going to be, Percival!?" Fred demands as George guffaws, grasping at his own belly and doubling over.

"Ten points from Gryffindor, and five from Slytherin for being out of bounds!" Harry laughs at Percy's bright red face and ears as they walk down to the Great Hall – he'd nudged Percy in the side just as they'd stepped out of the portrait hole together, and Percy is now positively apoplectic as he realizes who the boy sat with his brothers had been.

"Here, Potter, we're sitting with the Ravenclaws - were you in the kitchens all that time?" Afifa asks.

"I was in the Gryffindor common room. Just won three secret portrait passwords for it, actually."

"Five points to Slytherin for creative thinking."

"Prefect Lanjwani!" snaps Percy Weasley furiously, and he glares at her, positively purple with rage, and Harry has to stifle a laugh against his sleeve.

"I just took those points off him!"

"And?" Afifa's tone is icy, her gaze even icier. Afifa and Percy stand head to head, Percy only a little bit taller than she is, Percy flustered and red in the face and stuttering, and Afifa with an impassive expression on her pretty face. And with that, he turns and stomps to the Gryffindor table, leaving Harry to sit down and look pleased with himself.

Poor Percy: he almost feels bad.

Lunch is a tremendously good affair – Harry isn't fond of roasted meat, as it's a little too similar to the meals at the Dursleys, but there's all sorts of stuff to eat at the table, and he ends up settling with a festively decorated chicken pie. Magical Christmas crackers are tremendous as well – he ends up with a wizarding chess set, a green bonnet and some snake cufflinks he swapped from a Ravenclaw for a book of Christmas poetry.

The rest of the day is uneventful, really, and by the time Harry goes to bed he's exhausted, and sleeps very well.

Of course, when he wakes up, it's a little sluggishly, and he sleepily moves to get dressed. It's only once he is dressed and he's rifling through his trunk for a book that he looks up.

"Merlin's BEARD, Potter. You're popular!"

"Afifa?" She points to the heap of what must be three dozen packages packed in front of his tree, and Harry stares, his green eyes wide behind the glass of his spectacles.

"Oh my God. Are they all for me!?" He hadn't noticed them. He hadn't even looked at the tree, it hadn't even occurred to him that there'd be anything there except whatever Hermione and his house mates had given him.

"Well, they're not for Salazar Slytherin, are they? Leave them, for now – we've got breakfast."

And Harry does follow her down, but not before counting the packages and realizing, with a mix of grim satisfaction and a bit of guilt (what ever had he done to deserve all that?) that he has thirty nine presents under the tree.

He'll have to make sure to let Dudley know.


	9. Year One: Tempting Fate

Breakfast is not so extravagant an affair, but this simplicity came with the promise that later on Christmas lunch and the Christmas dinner would be far more exciting; once more, the three had been settled on the Ravenclaw table with the lingering Ravenclaws.

Harry remains quietly thoughtful as he eats his bacon and eggs, utterly thrown, and when he settles back down in his dormitory, he closes the door, setting about unwrapping each of the gifts he'd been sent. He selects, to begin with, a parcel that is neatly wrapped, but with creased paper and old twine: it turns out, to Harry's surprise, to be from Molly Weasley.

He stares at the contents as he removes them: a thick, green jumper he's certain she must have knitted herself (he didn't even know wizards wore jumpers – most of the time people seemed to just enchant their robes!), and folded inside, a box of home-made fudge. He smiles a little, immediately pulling it on over his head, and sets to the rest.

The first few make sense – various sweets from the other boys in his year, a book about magical political systems from Hermione, a hand-carved flute from Hagrid, a box of candies from Draco… And then the others just astonish him.

It seems like most of the people he sends letters to has sent him one gift or other, and he can't even believe how generous it all is: Augusta Longbottom had sent him a book of Jinxes & Hexes to Shock and Stop, Dedalus Diggle had sent him a Wizard's Guide to Stylish Hats, Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy had sent him, bizarrely, a candlestick holder, but when he sets it on his bedside table with a candle inside it the silver coils around its base with a soft hiss. It is a snake, Harry realizes, that holds the base of the candle in its mouth, and apparently Vanishes the falling wax as time goes on.

Everyone had sent him things, and Harry feels ridiculously grateful and lucky as he sets the pairs of gloves and hats and scarves he'd received on top of his trunk, the books stacked on his bedside table, and the blanket from Andromeda Tonks folded on his bed. He realizes, as he smiles to himself, that he'd missed just one – a smaller, thinner package. There's barely any weight to it as he picks it up, and he peers at the note with curiosity. The looping handwriting isn't familiar to him, and he frowns at it.

 _Your father left this in my possession before he died._

 _Use it well._

He pulls out the package's contents, and the fabric feels wonderful between his fingers, with so little weight to it, tremendously soft against his skin: he throws it over his shoulders, seeing how the cloak falls, and is shocked to realize when he looks down that he can't see himself.

An invisibility cloak – someone had given him an invisibility cloak, that belonged to his father? He folds it immediately and puts it neatly into the bottom of his wardrobe to hide out of the way; with that he opens the door and moves into the common room.

"That looks warm." Afifa comments lightly, regarding the jumper, but then she advises, "I'd not let Professor Snape see you in it."

"He won't approve?"

"Like as not. Who sent you all those gifts, then?"

"The people I send letters to, mostly. Then my friends, and my Aunt and Uncle." Harry mentions the last two with a roll of his eyes and a disapproving tone to his voice, and Afifa frowns a little, tilting her head.

"What did they send you?"

"A fifty pence piece." She blinks at him, perplexed, and he reaches into his pocket, pulling out the silver coin. She peers at it, utterly befuddled by its shape, size and colour, and then she asks,

"How much is that in real money?" Trying not to laugh at the likely sour expression his Uncle Vernon would take on at hearing someone refer to wizarding currency as "real money", he answers,

"Not much. I'm not sure about how it'd transfer, but that might buy me a really small chocolate bar and nothing else." Afifa snorts, amused, and hands it back.

"What else, then?"

"Oh, God, loads of stuff. I didn't mean for anyone to send me anything!"

"That's what you get for sending letters, Potter," Afifa says, not at all disapproving – she's actually smiling a little, and it seems like she's really happy that Harry's done so well with gifts. "Make sure you send thank-you notes."

"I'm starting them now." And Harry does: that's what he does until lunch, neatly penning small letters with excited words of gratitude followed by apologies for not reciprocating: he can't believe it. He's never had real gifts at Christmas, and having so many is just bizarre. He's in such a good mood that he forgets to remove the jumper before going up to the great hall, and Snape stares at him when he enters, black eyes boring holes in Harry's confidence.

"Sir?"

"You match the Weasleys, Potter." Snape speaks grimly, and he points, irritation plain on his face, at the Weasley boys: Fred and George's bright orange jumpers are emblazoned with an F and a G, though Ron's and Percy's are plain like Harry's own.

"Mrs Weasley sent it, sir."

"I surmised."

"I could ask her to make one for you next year, sir. She could knit a black one." Snape purses his lips, and Harry offers him a hopeful smile. Without saying anything more, Snape pushes him to enter the hall without so much as taking a point off him – perhaps Christmas had put him in a good mood. He reconsiders this estimation when Dumbledore makes him pull a cracker, and Snape's response to winning a bright pink bonnet is to scowl and push it into Flitwick's lap.

Still, though, the rest of the day passes very quickly, and when Harry finally retires to his dorm for the night, he's in a spectacularly good mood. He's not especially tired, though, and he looks to his trunk, considering the invisibility cloak he'd received, the one he'd not told Afifa Lanjwani about.

He could go up to the Third Floor, just to see. Hermione had taught him an unlocking charm, and he could-

Closing his curtains and blowing out his new candle to make it seem like he'd gone to bed, Harry pulls out his the cloak and puts it on. It dwarfs him a little, given that he's so short, but it doesn't matter so much when you can't see it once it's on: he creeps into the Slytherin common room and, after glancing around and seeing neither Afifa nor the sad Slytherin boy are about, he whispers the password (tinselitis) he's certain Snape didn't pick, and steps out into the draughty corridor.

The cloak hides him, but it doesn't mask the sound of his footsteps, and it's too cold for Harry to walk without boots, so he moves slowly and tries not to step too loudly. He makes his way up the stairs, and then to the third floor: the big hall of stairs is dark, all the lamps having been dimmed for the evening, but he still feels like all the portraits on the walls are staring down at him through their closed eyelids.

"Alohomora," he whispers, and he hears the click of the lock: it sounds obscenely loud, but none of the portraits so much as stir from where they're mostly sleeping in their frames. With that, he reaches out of the cloak and turns the thick, heavy handle, pushing open the door and peering inside.

He stares, mouth open, eyes wide. Directly in front of him, big, brown eyes glaring at him, are three- no, a three-headed, dog. The Cerberus, which had been one of the animals in the book Hagrid had given him a few weeks ago, is huge, and it sniffs the air as it star-

But it can't be staring at him. He's invisible.

Harry doesn't step into the room, not wanting to tempt fate as to whether it'll smell him or hear him, and he looks around – the Cerberus is alone, but its huge paws are on top of a large, oak trapdoor in the stone floor, and Harry makes a note of this.

The grubby package's contents must be underneath it. Harry pulls the door closed, and flinches when he hears a sharp,

"Who's there!?" Oh, God. Snape. Black robes billowing, he begins to make his way down the stairs from the sixth floor, and Harry moves as fast as he can onto a moving staircase, letting it carry him across the way. He watches Snape with horror as he bullets down the stairs, moving with supernatural speed.

Harry runs out into the fourth floor's corridors, and he hisses, desperately, "I like your spinning!" to a portrait of a woman at a spindle, throwing himself into the passage as she opens up. It leads right down to the ground floor, Harry knows – it's the best of the three passages Fred and George had given him – and he moves as swiftly as he can.

He doesn't breathe again until he's safe in his bed, and he breathes heavily as he folds up the cloak and puts it away.

It wouldn't have been worth seeing a dragon if it meant Snape catching him out of bounds at night.


	10. Year One: New Discoveries

"And that's between Dumbledore and Nicholas Flamel!"

Hermione and Harry share a significant look, and Hagrid turns bright pink immediately, looking between the both of them with horror on his features.

"Hey, now, hey now-" he begins to protest, but it's much, much too late: they'd just come down to chat to Hagrid, and hadn't really hoped to get any information about anything when Harry had asked about Fluffy, and honestly, what kind of name is that for a three-headed dog? But Hagrid had gotten all too flustered, and now they have a name to look for.

"See you later, Hagrid!"

"Have a nice day!"

"OI! Don't you two-" Harry realizes that Hagrid sighs rather than looking back to see it. He and Hermione had gone down to see him for her very first day back, after Harry had filled her in on his cloak, the Cerburus AND nearly being caught by Snape. There's still two or three days left of the holiday, of course, and they have time to research.

"Nicholas Flamel. Sounds familiar."

"It does to me as well. Any ideas?" Hermione shakes her head, and Harry hums, thoughtful.

"I'll ask around." Hermione gives him a sideways glance, seeming surprised.

"What, with the Slytherins? Harry-"

"With my housemates. And it's not like asking a teacher: they won't get suspicious."

"Who you won't tell about your cloak."

"I won't tell anybody about my cloak. Consider yourself lucky." Harry punctuates this comment with a flick to Hermione's nose, and she stares at him, indignation hilariously obvious on her face.

"Can't you keep your hands off the ugly shrew, Potter?" Pansy Parkinson grumbles as she walks past, pug-face scrunching up with the effort to talk.

"Leave speech to the more evolved of our species, Parkinson. We wouldn't want you to strain yourself," Hermione retorts. Harry laughs at Parkinson's irritated noise as she walks by, and he high-fives Hermione, grinning at her. It's nice to have her back – ridiculously nice, actually, and it's exciting to talk to her just after classes. It's weird, how he's gotten so used to having friends to talk to, when he never used to have them at all.

Harry's not stupid: he doesn't write off about Flamel in his letters – after all, whatever it is, it's being protected by a Cerberus for a reason, and there's no sense putting out a beacon if people don't realize it's at Hogwarts, and he doesn't want to ask a teacher, but students won't bat an eyelid at a weird question.

"Excuse me? Jakob?" Jakob Mikkelsen is a tall young man, elfin in appearance, pale, limby and ethereally beautiful, and he's a seventh year, ready to leave once his NEWTs are over. Most importantly, he's not a prefect, and doesn't really talk much to the prefects either.

"Potter?" Jakob Mikkelsen's voice is mellifluous and positively enchanting: he speaks, as he always speaks, as if each word is from some poem no one else has been notified he's reciting. For a second, taken over by the (presumably) genetic charm of the other boy, Harry forgets to speak, and then he remembers: "Um, I was reading one of the books I got sent for Christmas, and Nicholas Flamel came up in one of the references. What's he known for? I wanted to find some more on him in the library."

"He's an alchemist, Potter." Jakob's lilac eyes are clear, but his voice remains dreamy. Slender fingers reaching out to adjust Harry's tie, he offers a pleasant smile. Harry forgets to breathe. "We're studying him at the moment. He's the only known creator of the Philosopher's Stone."

"Oh."

"Potter?"

"Mmm?"

"Lungs." Harry heaves in a breath at the reminder, and Jakob shows his teeth as he grins, tapping the knot of his tie with an easy affection. "There. Off you go, now."

Harry stumbles a little as he walks into his dormitory, and he's still burning red as he sits down on the edge of his bed. Draco, Theo, Crabbe and Blaise are already in there, sat on Draco's with a set of cards between them, and regularly he hears the familiar bang and following hissing sound of a card snapping. Draco's lucky the house elves are so willing to repair his burnt bedsheets.

"You look bright," Blaise comments immediately, plump lips quirking into a smirk. He likes to see people blush.

"I talked to Jakob Mikkelsen," Harry admits.

"What on Earth did you do that for?" Blaise asks, evidently discomfited with the thought, and Draco tuts at him, shaking his head disapprovingly. Blaise raises his head in easy defiance: unlike Crabbe and his larger counterpart, who is yet to return to Hogwarts by Floo, he and Nott do not easily bow to Draco's whims and opinions.

"Is he a Veela?" Harry asks, thinking of the description he'd read in his Introduction to Wizarding Society, which had had a section on various non-human members of magical society – mostly part-Veela, vampires, hags and goblins.

"Veela are only female. Males with Veela heritage can't do the glamours." Draco speaks authoritatively, because he knows about Veela. Apparently his family are accused of being Veela all the time.

"No one knows that Jakob is, but he's some sort of half-breed."

"Elf," Crabbe grunts.

"Vincent, he's not gonna be a bloody elf, is he? The only elves we see are house elves, and house elves don't look like him." Theodore Nott sighs in a fraternally exasperated way, and Harry regards him with a slight fondness: Nott has several younger sisters at home, and subsequently he reacts to almost everything with boredom, vague responsibility and a sort of half-annoyed assistance.

It's actually really nice to have someone like him around.

He speaks with finality but not any particular authority; despite this, everyone wordlessly accepts what Theo has said. That's generally the case.

"He's probably some sort of fae. Why'd you talk to him, anyway?"

"Just homework stuff." Theo snorts, as if homework wasn't a big enough issue to pay for by talking to Mikkelsen, and Harry sprawls on his bed, dropping his glasses aside and lying on the side. He watches the other boys play snap, and he lets his eyes droop a little: he only gets up properly when Draco pokes him in the cheek and orders "Dinner."

"Yes, sir." Harry says sarcastically, and pretends not to notice how pleased Draco is about it.


	11. Year One: A Special Delivery

"Nicholas Flamel is an only known maker of the Philosopher's Stone," Harry supplies as he comes down to where Hermione is settled a little ways from the lake, dropping down next to her on the ground.

"Oh!" Hermione cries, recognition spreading across her features, her eyes going wide. "Oh, I've taken out a book for a little light reading, and it's got a bit on him, I think."

"They're studying him in alchemy," Harry says with a nod, and Hermione furrows her brow. She leans back, looking thoughtful for a few moments, and Harry adjusts his position on the grass, putting his hands behind his back on the ground. The grass had been a little damp, but Hermione had fixed that with a charm, and now they sit on the hill together, away from anyone who might want to eavesdrop.

"What does it do?" Harry asks after a short pause, realizing he has no idea.

"It's basically mythical," Hermione answers, staring out across the water. According to the older students, the giant squid often dances and slides lazily across the surface of the lake in the summers, but for now it's nowhere to be seen, and Harry doesn't mind. "It can turn any metal into gold, and from it you can make the elixir of life. It's why Flamel and his wife are both still alive – they must be at least six hundred by now."

Involuntarily and without being entirely certain why, Harry shivers, horrified at the idea – living for that long. It just sounds horrible. And gold? Well. That doesn't sound worth all the effort.

"And now the stone is here. But why?"

Harry flinches and lets out a hiss of noise, clutching at his scar as it gives a sudden flare of pain: God, why does it keep doing that? It must be the third or fourth time it's given a sudden sharp bite for no reason at all, and Harry can't figure out what each occasion has had in common. He'd thought it was Snape to start with, but with all the time he has with the Potions master glaring at him angrily, it doesn't happen every time.

"You really should look into curse scars, Harry," Hermione says quietly, almost reproachfully, and she looks at him with obvious concern on her face, and Harry shakes his head.

"I have, Hermione. I'm the only known survivor of the killing curse – no one has the same scar."

"But can't you write someone or something, or-?" Hermione's protest seems to be automatic, because she stops short and lets out a huff of a sigh. Harry shakes his head. He doesn't want to write about it in a letter, because the information feels wrong, or dangerous, somehow. It's not normal for his head to hurt like it does, he knows that, but… "Who do you think wants the stone?"

"It could be anyone," Harry answers, grateful for the break in the momentary silence. "Unlimited life and money? Maybe it's Ron Weasley."

"You don't need to be so mean to him, Harry," Hermione says, and Harry stares at him.

"Me, mean to him?" Harry demands, still feeling the sting of the way Ron had snapped at him after his Sorting. "I don't even talk to him if I can help it. Why're you so keen to defend him for, anyway? He's awful to you."

"He's got some big shoes to fill. I don't think he's all bad." Harry opens his mouth to retort, but the yell behind him makes him turn.

"Oi! Harry!" Draco is running quickly down the hill from the castle, and Harry murmurs quickly to Hermione,

"Don't tell him about the stone."

"Isn't he your friend?" Hermione's voice takes on a slightly snooty tone at this, as she doesn't think Malfoy is worth being Harry's friend at all, but Harry doesn't call her out on it. He's not made any effort to reign in his bigotry, after all.

"Yeah, but he'll write his dad about it in a second. Don't."

Draco almost skids on the grass as he gets down to them, but he manages to steady himself – he has a good balance, Draco does. Harry suspects it has something to do with all the time he spends on a broom at home.

"Alright, Draco?" Harry asks lazily, leaning back on his hands and doing his best to look casual. Hermione's expression implies he is failing miserably to do so.

"Harry. Granger."

"If you're going to be rude, Draco, just go back up to the castle." Harry speaks before Hermione can get in an equally sharp response, and Draco stops short, mouth opening, eyes widening, slight pink darkening at the tops of his ivory cheeks. He doesn't like being told what to do, Harry knows – Draco's primary "friends" of choice are Crabbe and Goyle, and both of them are unimaginative, cruel and completely dim. But they follow his orders, and Harry's not going to start doing that any time soon.

"An owl just dropped off some post for you, that's all. It's on your bed." Draco had hesitated for a moment, but when he speaks he even manages to look at Hermione as well as his house-mate. Harry frowns a little. He runs through the tally of letters he's sent most recently – no one should have really replied yet, and normally the owls drop in post in the morning or the evening with other owls.

"Where did it fly to?"

"It came in through one of the windows in the Viaduct and right down to the common room. Francis Drummond had to let the thing in," Draco says, doing his best not to sound as interested as he obviously is. After all, were he not as curious as Harry is about the thing, he'd not have run down the hill. Harry glances at Hermione, who is frowning in concentration as she looks at Malfoy.

"What sort of owl is it?" She asks. Malfoy hesitates, lip curling for a second, but he seems to think better of it.

"It's an eagle owl, like my father's. It's just a blue envelope, though, and I didn't pick it up to look at it, so I don't know about the seal," Draco answers, and Hermione tilts her head, seeming to consider this.

"You're not waiting on anything special, are you?"

"Well, no, not really. Everyone on my list has replied pretty recently, or they haven't got my letters yet, so I don't really see… I suppose this means I should get up," Harry finishes dispassionately, and Hermione rolls her eyes before jabbing him in the side with her elbow.

"Oi!"

"Just go and see what it is. It might be important."

"It might be a postal order form for Honeydukes in Hogsmeade," Harry points out.

"A postal order form an owl brought directly into the Slytherin common room to place on your bed?" Draco asks, sarcasm dripping from the aristocratic vowels, and Harry sighs.

"They might be half-price this week?" he offers half-heartedly, and Hermione shoves him. He pulls himself up off the grass, and despite himself he's aching to find out what it is – blue is a pretty standard colour, but suddenly his brain goes into overdrive as it formulates every possible shade the envelope could be, as if that'll give him more of a clue as to its contents.

"See you, Hermione. Potions in an hour or so, yeah?"

"Yes," Hermione says absently, her eyes focused on the book that had materialized in her lap as soon as Harry had gotten up. "Partners?"

"Sounds good." He begins to make his way up the hill, bag slung over his shoulder, and Draco walks beside him, waiting until Hermione is out of earshot before he drawls out something offensive.

"You needn't partner with her."

"I needn't," Harry says, "But I shall."

"But she's only a-" Draco cuts himself off when Harry looks at him, and then they walk in silence. Sharing a room together necessitates that Draco and Harry not completely despise each other, and when Draco's not being hateful, Harry actually quite likes him – he's posh and he's smug, but he's not actually as much like Dudley as he thought he'd been. Oh, he's spoilt and entitled, certainly, but he's helpful with homework, and unlike Dudley he actually does all his homework himself – and well, too. The only person ahead of him in Potions is Hermione, after all. In their Slytherin/Ravenclaw classes, he's sometimes top of the class.

Harry heads down the corridor, leaning and picking up the envelope from the bed: it's a soft, periwinkle blue, and the envelope looks expensive with paper lacing at the edge. Harry shifts his nail under the envelope's lip and drags it open with a quiet rip of parchment paper, shaking out the letter inside and dropping to sit back on the bed _with it._

 _Dear Mr Potter,_

 _We have not previously corresponded, although I overheard Mrs Bones and Mrs Longbottom discussing your letters in the halls of the Ministry of Magic this Thursday past; discussing your apparent passion for your studies, they talked of books that might be recommended to you. My daughter has mentioned your appreciation of Magical History, and while its study is most certainly dry at Hogwarts, as a consequence of Professor Binns, the subject is a fascinating one._

 _The Hogwarts library is practical, but many of its books are antiquarian or out-dated in their arguments and layers of study: enclosed find a list of books and a modest voucher for their purchase at Flourish & Blotts._

 _Daphne's young friends have received such vouchers already, of course, as they were given them in preparation for the school year, but as you have been raised outside of magical society, it is no fault of yours that you have been deprived of her company previous to this year. Please, enjoy the books, and do pursue your studies with vigour._

 _I have given instructions for Laurel to deliver this letter to your common room, lest it be received at meal time and a Gryffindor teacher accuse such a simple, unextravagant discount as unfairly given._

 _Good luck with your studies,_

 _Mrs Athene Greengrass_

Harry frowns slightly, and then he glances through the vouchers that had been left in the envelope: they're of simple, golden paper, and their instructions say merely to place them in with an order form to be sent to Flourish and Blotts.

Lycanthropy In Society: A New Plague, The Heirs of Salazar Slytherin, Catastrophes of Recent Past: The Dark Arts In Action, Ministerial Insight: A History Of The Ministry of Magic, Dressed To Impress: Wizarding Fashion And Its Influences and Charming An Audience With Spells and Smiles are the titles listed, and their authors are unfamiliar to him except for one – Dressed To Impress is written by A. Greengrass.

"What is it?" Draco asks, and Harry passes him the letter. Disappointment radiates from the other boy's form as he reads it. "Oh, is that all?"

"These are quite expensive," Harry says, trying not to sound as horrified as he really is – he had picked up all sorts of books in Flourish and Blotts, but the original prices on the vouchers all exceed to the money he'd paid for all his schoolbooks together. Thinking of the money stacked in his vault, Harry is guiltily aware he could probably have bought these himself, but the vouchers are a kind gesture.

"Oh, more so than school books," Draco says airily, "It's only a matter of politics – of course all of us could easily afford them." Harry grits his teeth, sits down, and begins to write a thank you letter. He does like Draco sometimes. He'll just remember that later.

* * *

"But that's so unfair!" Hermione hisses as she drops a spoon of beetle eyes into their cauldron.

"I don't think fairness is one of the Slytherin focuses, Hermione," Harry points out as he stirs the potion, watching it bubble from indigo to lilac.

"Well, you're not going to use them."

"Hermione, a lady sent me vouchers for six free books, just because I'm in the same year as her daughter. It's not her being like, malicious." Hermione frowns.

"But it's unfair," Hermione says again, and Harry agrees, but he doesn't want to be rude, and he does want more books for his little collection.

"And you'll be able to read them too," Harry points out, and Hermione opens her mouth to argue, then seems to reconsider. "It's not really that much different to all the books I got for Christmas, right?"

"Well, I don't want to read Dress To Impress," Hermione says, and Harry stifles a snigger.

"That's alright, Hermione. Dress To Impress can be mine alone."

"Mr Potter," says a slow, sarcastic tone from behind him. "Will dressing to impress, I wonder, assist in the use of your Wideye Potion?"

"It might, sir," Harry says reasonably, "Being awake's quite fashionable, so I hear." Snape stares at him as Hermione gasps, but the Professor's straight-lipped, neutral expression doesn't so much as twitch at Harry's cheek – Harry's beginning to wonder what would make the man flinch, and he sort of wants to find out. Professor Snape is scary, of course, but it's not like he'll kill Harry.

At least, not until they're onto poisons rather than antidotes.

"Five points from Slytherin, Mr Potter," Snape says, and glides to Neville Longbottom's desk, where sickly yellow smoke is beginning to rise in threatening circles. Harry turns to Hermione, who is gazing at him with her eyebrows furrowed in disapproval, and he grins.

"I'll send off the postal order tonight, then?"

"Fine," Hermione says, and they look back to their work. They're only books, Harry thinks. They can't be that bad.


	12. Year One: The Mirror of Erised

Harry stares at page 36 of Lycanthropy in Society. He has been staring at the page for about thirty minutes now, and he isn't doing all that well in trying to keep reading it. Hermione sits next to him, ostensibly reading over his shoulder and actually doodling flowers absent-mindedly on a scrap of spare parchment.

The other books had been quite good, honestly. Harry had been fascinated by all the history and culture in Dress To Impress, and Ministerial Insight had been quite interesting even though it was dry and sometimes lilted into lists of names, but this one?

"I don't think I can read this any more," Harry says, looking at the illustration on page 37 of a werewolf's bloodied maw.

"It's just-" Hermione hesitates, not wanting to criticize the printed word in any respect, but struggling. "It just seems very harsh."

"Yeah," Harry agrees. He doesn't really know how to put it into words, the way the book feels so uncomfortable. It keeps calling werewolves animals, even when they're people sometimes, and it's… Well, the book started with a call to execute all the werewolves in the UK, which had been a shocking beginning. "Maybe we'll read it next year."

"Yeah," Hermione agrees, and she seems relieved as Harry chucks it aside, leaning back in the armchair. They're in the corner of the library, settled on one of the singular comfortable chairs in the ridiculously huge room, Harry sat on the seat and Hermione on the arm. The library spans forwards, and above them Harry can see three or four balconies for the next few library floors: they're on the ground floor, and occasionally a book will fly over their heads or past their table, but by now it's easy to ignore. "I'm bored."

"I don't think I've ever heard you say that before," Harry says mildly as he reaches for the werewolf book and drops it into his book bag. He's bored too, though. It's ten o'clock on a Saturday morning, and they have no classes for the rest of the day. Hermione doesn't really like to play games like chess or gobstones much, and Harry is avoiding Exploding Snap until the burn on his left pinky heals up.

"We've done all of our homework," Hermione points out, watching as Harry stoppers his unused ink bottle and drops that into the bag as well. "It's only a week into term. There's nothing to really revise yet."

"No," Harry agrees, thinking. "Come on, get up." Hermione frowns at him, but then she shrugs, pulling her bag over her shoulder, and they walk together through the corridors on the first floor. "How many classrooms do you think there are in the school?"

"I don't know," Hermione says. "We have a Potions classroom, Transfiguration, Charms, History, Astronomy, Defence Against The Dark Arts… And then they use Divination, Care of Magical Creatures, Alchemy, Muggle Studies, Ancient Runes and Arithmancy."

"So that's twelve classrooms currently in use, and then there's four or five in the school that are completely empty and that people can use to study," Harry says. "But there are at least twelve on this floor, and at least twenty on the fifth. Think of all the doors we walk past every day."

"They must be locked, though," Hermione says as they approach an unmarked door, looking a little bit nervous as she and Harry share a look.

"They could be," Harry agrees.

"They're probably completely empty," Hermione says. "Why would there still be stuff still in old, unused classrooms?"

"You're probably right," Harry agrees. "Probably completely empty." He grins at her. After a pause, she grins back, and he reaches for the door handle. He grasps at it, turning it to the side, and the door opens easily under his hand and creaks slightly as he pushes it forwards. The candles around the room flicker into life, and Harry and Hermione stare into the room from its threshold. There are a few desks stacked to the right of the room, and around its edges are mostly empty shelves, but on some of them are stacked a few books, various bottles and knick-knacks, some bottles of ink and some quills.

"People use the empty classrooms all the time," Harry says. "If we weren't allowed to look around, they'd be locked. If the stuff was dangerous, it wouldn't be here." As one, they step inside. Hermione moves to the six or seven books stacked on the shelves, glancing through them, and Harry moves to sit behind the teacher's desk, pulling out the drawers. Nothing is dusty – the house elves keep the castle far too clean for that, and except for a few very high ceilings and occasional forgotten corners, dust never forms anywhere in the castle.

Harry pulls out some blank scraps of parchment, an unused padlock, a small mirror. The glass is mounted in clean, carved wood, and around its edges are motifs of tropical fish, its handle carved into the shape of a dolphin. It's nice. Harry wonders why someone would leave it behind.

"These are old textbooks," Hermione says, fingering over the spines in front of her. "An equivalent of Muggle Studies, I think, but less, um, respectful." Harry pulls a face, and he fingers the mirror in his hand before he puts it gently back into the drawer and pushes it shut again. The other drawers contain no similar treasures, but only more books about Muggle oddities.

"Oh, Harry," Hermione says, having pulled out a book from the very back of a shelf. "Look at this." He gets up, moving to kneel down beside her, and they page through a photo album – the photographs are sepia-toned and blurry, and the movements are jarred and stunted compared to those more modern magical photographs would make, but he smiles at them all the same. There are children playing, photographs of students passing around a ball in the classroom, a picture of a cat sprawled over the desk Harry had just been sat at. "That's so cute," Hermione says. "I wish I had a cat."

"Why don't you get one?" Harry asks as he turns the page, seeing the same cat curled in a ball in the desk chair. "You're allowed."

"I've never had a pet before," Hermione says, shrugging. "Maybe next year."

They put the album back after they've finished looking through the albums, and with that, they move onto the next unused classroom, and then the next. It's interesting, looking through the things professors had left behind, and they talk casually about things as they go, about classes and history, about the teachers that must have taught at Hogwarts over the years.

It's nearing twelve when they go into a fifth classroom, and they stop short as they enter inside, peering into the room. They'd thought it was a classroom, anyway, but it isn't, and nor is it a broom cupboard: the ceiling is slightly vaulted, the room round and curtained with blue around its edges. In the middle of the room, illuminated by a beam of sunlight that can't be coming from any window, is a mirror.

It's tall, ornately carved with gold around the outside, and it stands on two clawed feet. The gold, so different and so much brighter than the modestly carved mirror Harry had held in his hands earlier, strikes him as almost gaudy for a moment, but as they step closer they can see its delicate design.

"What is this doing here?" Hermione asks, frowning up at it, and she steps behind it to look at the back.

"Erised strah ehru oyt ube cafru oyt on wohsi," Harry says.

"Pardon?"

"That's what it says on the mirror." Harry steps closer, looking up at the carefully carved in writing, and he looks inside it. He almost lets out a shout when he realizes he's not the only person in the mirror, and he stares at his reflection, momentarily horrified. And then he starts to recognize the faces. "Oh my God, Hermione-"

"What?" she asks, coming out from behind the mirror and looking at him concernedly. "What is it? Is it cursed?"

"I don't think so," he says, reaching out and tracing over the face reflected nearest to him. When he turns to look, there's no one there.

"What do you see?" she asks, glancing at him. She stands to his right, and he looks at her strangely for a moment.

"Don't you see them?"

"I only see you," Hermione admits, and Harry nods his head.

"Uh, it's my family, I think. My mum and dad are standing behind me, but it's not just them – it's aunts and uncles and stuff. I recognize a lot of them from photos I've been sent." He doesn't recognize all of them, though. He recognizes some traits amongst the faces he hasn't seen before, but he doesn't know them like he does the ones he's received so far. The magic of the mirror seems to pull him in, and his heart aches for a few seconds as he looks over the faces, all smiling at him as they surround him and look proudly down at him, his family, a big family. The family he'd never had.

"Oh, wow, it shows your family?" Hermione asks, sounding fascinated.

"Yeah," Harry nods his head, and he steps out of the way of the mirror to swap places with her. "You try!" Hermione steps in place, and she stares into the mirror, her deep, dark brown eyes widening slightly.

"Oh," she says. Harry glances at her.

"What? Don't you see your family?" She mutely shakes her head, and she reaches out, touching the glass for a second just like Harry had, as if to see if it's real.

"No, I see me and you, some friends, and we're all at dinner together. There's a bookcase behind me, a big one, and my family are there, they're laughing with Percy Weasley… I'm wearing a suit, I guess I've got a really good job, and we all look happy. I," she stops short, her hand going up to her face, and Harry glances at her.

"Hermione? Are you okay?"

"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine," she says, closing her mouth and frowning at her reflection. "This is weird."

"Yeah," Harry agrees. He wants to keep looking, he really does, but he feels like they shouldn't. "We should go. It's nearly time for lunch."

"We should," Hermione agrees. She keeps looking up at her reflection, breathing in evenly and regularly. She starts to describe the books on the shelves behind her, what she's wearing, what Harry's wearing, explains how cutely ugly the cat on her mum's lap is. They swap places, and Harry tells her what his dad looks like, what his mum looks like, and then starts to describe the relatives he knows. They swap again, and then again, and then again. The mirror is… Hypnotising.

"Ah, children," says a quiet, sage voice behind them, and Harry stops in mid-description of his Great Grand Uncle's knobbly knees, looking back towards the doorway. Professor Dumbledore stands, hands clasped neatly in front of him, watching the both of them with his old, blue eyes. "Your prefects have been looking for you."

"Looking for us?" Hermione repeats. "But it's only-"

"It's six o'clock," Harry says, staring at his watch, and Hermione looks horrified. "How can it be six o'clock?"

"But we've only been here-"

"Ms Granger," Dumbledore says softly, and not at all unkindly, "Perhaps you had best go to the Great Hall and inform Mr Weasley and Ms Lanjwani of your respective safeties. Mr Potter will join you in a few moments." Harry and Hermione share a look, and then she runs off with her book bag in tow. Harry hadn't noticed it, but he's suddenly really hungry.

"I'm sorry, sir," he says, "We were just looking through the classrooms, and then we found this mirror-"

"Yes, Harry, the Mirror of Erised has enchanted many a young soul, and an old one. I shouldn't worry." With Dumbledore standing beside him, a look in the mirror shows only their reflections, and Harry looks at the old man's wizened face and bright, purple robes in the glass.

"Erised. That's what it says on the mirror."

"Yes," Dumbledore agrees quietly, "And what do you think it shows you, Harry? This mirror?"

"It's enchanted," Harry says, and Dumbledore gives a slow nod of his head. "It shows you- well, I don't know. It showed us different things, and Hermione is older in hers, but I'm the same age in mind, so it can't be the future, or the past, or a version of the present." Dumbledore is watching him expectantly, which Harry takes as a cue to go on. "And it's not necessarily stuff we can achieve, because I saw- well. What I saw was impossible. So it's not the truth that it shows. It's just… What we want?"

"Do you believe it is truly that simple?" Harry shakes his head even before Dumbledore finishes the question.

"It's what we want more than anything, isn't it? What we want, like, before we even think of wanting anything else, what we want in our- in our souls? In our-" Harry's gaze flickers over the inscription again. "I show not your face," he says softly. "But your heart's desire."

"Yes, Harry," Dumbledore says. "That's quite correct. The Mirror of Erised shows one not merely what they truly desire, but what they desire more than anything. Men have gone mad before its glass, my boy, but what it shows is merely a fiction. It is not a true reflection of the world around them."

"I'm sorry," Harry says again.

"You need not be sorry," Dumbledore says. "Were the classrooms off-limits, they would be locked. Were their contents dangerous, they would be removed." The arrogant part of Harry feels a smug thrill at hearing his own words come out of the headmaster's mouth, but Harry tries to stifle the feeling of satisfaction. "Nonetheless, this mirror will be rehomed quite soon. I should not advise you or Ms Granger to seek it out once more."

"No, sir," Harry says. "Do you, er, do you see anything, sir? When you look in it?"

"Oh," Dumbledore says, shrugging his ancient shoulders, "I see myself holding a pair of socks."

"A pair of- what?" The man is a loon. Draco, for once, was right.

"One can never have too many pairs of socks, Harry," Dumbledore says wisely, and he pats Harry's shoulder in a vaguely grandfatherly way. "Make your way down to the Great Hall, now. You and Ms Granger haven't eaten since breakfast, and you are in need of sustenance." Harry moves obediently out of the room, rushing down the corridor before Dumbledore can say anything else weird to him, and when he enters the Great Hall it is just behind Professor Snape, who turns to peer down at him.

"Oh," he says, sounding mildly disappointed, "It would seem you are both present and alive."

"I'll try my best to die next time, sir," Harry promises, and Snape's lips twitch. Harry wonders for a moment if he'll say something like, "If only you meant it, Potter," or "Five points to Slytherin for indulging my wishful thinking," or "Very good, Mr Potter," but Snape doesn't say any of those things.

"Eat," he orders cleanly, and makes his way up to the staff table. Harry shakes his head at the professor's retreating back, but at least he doesn't want socks more than anything else in the world.

Every teacher at this school is a weirdo, he's convinced.


	13. Year One: Fainting Spells

Harry goes to bed at nine after eating his fill at the feast that night, and he tosses and he turns. His bed is too hot, but when he kicks off his blankets, it's too cold, and the lake is too distracting, but lying with his eyes closed is too boring. At one, he gets out of bed, gets himself a glass of water, drinks it, and goes back to bed. At three, he closes his curtains. At four, he opens them again. At five, he goes into the common room, jogs on the spot for ten minutes as quietly as he can, and returns to his dormitory.

He sleeps until seven.

The next night is worse. He sleeps, and then he wakes up, and can't sleep for ages, and then sleeps for what can't even be ten minutes before he wakes up.

The third night he cries.

The fourth night he spends half of the night in the bath, and wakes up in cold bath water at two in the morning.

He can't sleep. He can't sleep. How can he sleep?

* * *

"What, are you at his beck and call?" Draco demands as Harry gets up at breakfast, and Harry huffs, staring at the other boy in disbelief. He doesn't have the patience for this, doesn't want to listen to Draco being stupid and cruel for no reason.

"Draco, he just asked for me and Hermione to come down and see him. Hagrid's a nice man. Stop being such a posh, stuck-up little twit all the time – it's the reason you'll never make any friends that aren't after your money or your influence, and while you'll end up marrying some shrew who hates your guts." Draco stares at him, obviously floored by the harsh response. Half the first year Slytherins are staring unabashedly with him, but none of them seem able to say anything, their mouths wide open. It's not just the first years, either – there are third years and two fifth years that are looking at Harry with the same mingled horror and uncertainty.

Harry doesn't feel the slightest hint of embarrassment as he walks away from the table, giving Hermione a little wave and gesturing for her to come over to him. He's too tired to feel guilty. Draco's this snooty all the time, and Harry normally doesn't respond to it, but today? He's exhausted, actually, and hasn't really slept for the past few days, for the past week and a half – he keeps thinking about all the faces in the mirror, how he and Hermione had been in that little room for hours and hours.

It's not that he wants to find the mirror again. If it was that, Hermione wouldn't be able to sleep either, but she's sleeping just fine. It's not the actual idea of the mirror, or being able to look at his family like that again: that's not the problem.

What upsets him, what scares him, what's kept him awake the last three nights, is the fact that a simple mirror kept him unaware of himself for six whole hours, and he never even suspected, never even considered, never even thought that what might be happening was less than normal.

Dumbledore had found them, but that wasn't the point. Why did a thing like that even exist? Why was it in a school? Why had it affected him and Hermione so much? Even when he sleeps for a scant hour at a time, he has horrible nightmares, and it seems like the less he sleeps the more his scar aches and pangs in his classes.

"Hagrid wants us," he says, and Hermione frowns at him as they walk out of the castle and down towards Hagrid's hut. They have a half hour before they need to head to their afternoon classes, and when they arrive Hagrid ushers them quickly into his little, wooden cabin.

Said cabin is hot.

The heat hits Harry in the face as soon as he and Hermione enter, and he gasps for breath, settling himself shakily down in one of the chairs by Hagrid's fireplace, which is far, far hotter than it ever has been.

"What are you doing, Hagrid?" Harry asks dully, staring into the blazing fire. It hurts his eyes, but after three days of barely any sleep, everything does.

"Oh," Hagrid says, grinning and rubbing his hands together, and Hermione moves up beside Harry, leaning down and peering into the fire.

"Oh my God, Hagrid, you haven't," Hermione says, and Harry glances at her before staring into the fire with a bit more concentration. There's a rounded sheen in the fire, as if something is in the-

"Hagrid," Harry says slowly, trying to force his exhausted brain into basic function. "That's not, uh, a dragon egg, is it?"

"Yep!" the groundskeeper proclaims proudly. Harry's entire body seems to say Oh, God, but his mouth can't really work out the words.

"Oh, right," Harry says dimly, "Is it going to hatch soon?"

"Next few days, I reckon," Hagrid says, but the pride is beginning to slip away from his face. "You alright, Harry?"

"Mmm," Harry nods his head. He and Hermione take some tea, with Hermione looking concernedly at him the whole time – Harry is so tired he doesn't even realize he's about to put one of Hagrid's rock cakes into his actual mouth, and Hermione has to grab his wrist at the last second to stop him from breaking a tooth.

"You shouldn't come to class, Harry," Hermione says, examining Harry in a way that makes Harry feel annoyed, but in a detached way, like he can't really get in touch with the feeling. His whole body feels heavy, like it's felt for the last week, and he feels hot and he feels cold, and he wants to sleep, but he knows he can't.

"I'm fine," Harry repeats, mouth functioning on autopilot, and he filters into the Potions classroom behind her. Snape stands at the blackboard, hands behind his back: in neat, scrawling hand-writing across the board, the potions ingredients and instructions for that day's potions are plainly legible.

Harry stops for a second, reading through the lines and lines of white chalk. The potion has no title, and Harry guesses they're supposed to work out what the potion does by the end of the lesson. Harry's eyes scan over the lines slowly, stuntedly, and after a second or two the lines seem to blur together in a way that frustrates him. Why won't anything work today? Why?

"Potter?" he hears a voice say, and he ignores it, trying to focus on the board. Beetle eyes. Flobberworm mucus. Beetle eyes. Flobberworm mucus. Beetle eyes- aren't there any other ingredients in the bloody potion? "Potter?" The board tilts, and Harry feels a strong, bony set of fingers tighten on his shoulder, stopping the board tilt any further to the side. Harry feels limp, and his vision is darkening at its edges.

"Flobberwormmm-" Harry says blearily, and a falling sensation runs sickeningly through his body as he drops. Everything's so dark, and everything's so heavy.

When Harry opens his eyes, he's laid on the floor, on his back, and Snape is looking down at him. His hair hangs around his head in limp, slightly greasy curtains, and from his position Harry can see into the nostrils of his slightly hooked nose. He giggles. Snape frowns, black eyes widening in alarm.

"Can you hear me, Potter?"

"Yessir," Harry says. "I can see up your nose, sir." Snape's eyes close for a second or two, and he looks like he's suppressing the urge to snap Harry's windpipe as there's a titter around the classroom, disembodied and strange. Even lying back as he is, unmoving, Harry feels dizzy and detached, sick to his stomach and floaty.

"Be quiet, Potter," Snape advises, and he glances up. Harry tries to follow his gaze, but the movement makes his head hurt, and he closes his eyes tightly. "Take him to the Infirmary. Mr Malfoy informs me he hasn't been sleeping well, and I suspect sleep deprivation is the spell's cause."

"What spell is it, sir?" asks a soft, curious voice. Harry hears an exasperated sigh, not from Snape, but from Hermione.

"He means a fainting spell, Lavender, not a magic one."

"Oh, right," Lavender Brown says, obviously annoyed at the Slytherins' laughter, and Harry feels himself dip down again as his body begins to move. Thank God, he thinks. Levitation was making his head lurch horribly.


	14. Year One: Dragons and Dungeons

Harry wakes very slowly, bit by bit over what feels like an hour or so. His eyes half-open, and then they open a bit more, and a fair while of just lying there after that, he shifts slightly under the light covers of the Hogwarts Infirmary's bed. Afternoon light is filtering in through the windows, their soft curtains wide open to usher in the pleasant brightness, and Harry is very, very slow about sitting up against the headboard.

"Ah, Potter, you're awake," Madam Pomfrey says, and she bustles forwards, reaching out and touching his forehead. Her fingers are cool, and he looks at her slightly blurry countenance as she looks down at him in obvious concern. He doesn't say anything, mouth dry and reluctant to open, and just lets her shift around his bed, plumping his pillows, moving things about on the bedside table. She mutters a few diagnostic spells, but doesn't seem as upset about the results as she could have been, and then she gives a brisk nod and walks away. Harry reaches for the glass of water on the side, drinking from it greedily and setting it down empty before he puts his glasses on.

The hospital wing comes sharply into focus, and he looks around for any other people, but the place is empty except for him. He vaguely remembers being in the Potions classroom, tired and feeling faint, but now he's in pyjamas and settled in an infirmary bed, so he can't have just fainted.

"What happened?" he asks when Madam Pomfrey returns with a steaming glass of pink liquid, pushing it into his hand. He hesitates, peering down at it cautiously, but when he drinks it he finds it's absolutely tasteless, and it sends warm tingles up his throat and through his body as he swallows.

"You fainted coming into your Potions class, Potter, and when I had you up here, I gave you a potion to put you to sleep for a while. Have you been having problems with insomnia, nightmares?" Harry nods. Madam Pomfrey frowns slightly, taking back the glass. "I'm reluctant to give you any Dreamless Sleep, because we don't want you dependent on it, but I'm going to give you a nip of Drowsy Dragon before bed for the next week or so, and that should be enough to put you back in order." Harry stares up at her. He's familiar with stories of Poppy Pomfrey's firm hand and medical eye, but this seems very... Lax.

"Is that uh, is that it?" She nods cleanly, her lips pursed in concentration.

"Oh, yes. Many students have trouble sleeping through the school year, Potter, I expect it's the same for any boarding school. Are you feeling sick at all? You feel a tad hot, more so than I'd like." Madam Pomfrey speaks very briskly, but she's not nasty about it, and Harry shakes his head. Seeming satisfied, she pulls a white cloth curtain around his bed and sets his robes out on the bed. "You've been in bed since yesterday morning, and it's coming up to two o'clock. You'll not to go to classes for the rest of the day, but you ought be fine. I'll have Professor Snape bring your potion by in the evening."

"Snape?" Harry repeats before she can leave the curtained in area of his hospital bed, and she arches an eyebrow.

"Your head of house."

"Yeah. Uh, does he brew the uh, Drowsy Dragon?" Madam Pomfrey shakes her head, tutting.

"It's a brand name," she says disapprovingly, as if the worst thing you could possibly give a child was a commercially brewed potion, and with that, she walks away. Harry feels like he's gotten off very lightly, but he isn't stupid enough to call her back, and he clambers out of the bed, pulling on his robes. He drops his wand into his pocket, pushing his glasses up his nose, and he picks up his satchel. He pushes back the curtains around his bed and then makes it up, setting the sheets neatly into place and adjusting the pillows. Glancing around, he sees Madam Pomfrey in her office, and he awkwardly takes a few steps towards the door.

"Er- sorry, Madam Pomfrey," Harry says. "Can I go?" She glances up from the paperwork on her desk, and then she nods her head. This is nothing like the treatment he got on the Quidditch pitch the other day, and he's somewhat relieved, so he just makes his way out of the hospital wing and down towards the Great Hall. He pushes open the broad, tall door, and the room has only the few students scattered about the four tables, chatting over snacks or getting a little bit of work done.

"Potter!" calls Afifa Lanjwani, and Harry makes his way over to where she's sat with a few other Sixth Years and Frank Richelieu, a complicated-looking game of thin, levitating sticks between them on the table. "You feeling better?"

"Yeah," Harry says, still not feeling entirely with it, and he nods his head. "Uh, yeah, I feel okay, I guess. Has Snape got classes right now? I need to ask about the work I missed-" Harry has the feeling that the Potions Master is going to kill him for having fainted in his class, and he considers this with a sinking feeling in his belly.

"Oh, don't be an idiot, Potter," Francois says disapprovingly, shaking his head. "Go down to the kitchens, eat something, and then go see your friends. He'll give you the work you missed tonight, after dinner."

"But-"

"That's not a suggestion, Potter," Frank warns, and Harry gives a weak, slightly embarrassed laugh at his and Afifa's stern expressions.

"Alright," he agrees reluctantly, and he doesn't complain when Frank reaches over and ruffles his hair to be even messier than it already was. He feels slightly detached and still somewhat floaty - not at all ill or faint like he had been yesterday, but just like he's missing something after sleeping for so long. Francois and Afifa are right, though, and he makes his way to the staircases.

* * *

"You look much better," Hermione says when she comes out of Charms class, and Harry nods his head in agreement. Now that he's eaten and had some time to wake up properly, he feels much better, and he feels like he's actually able to make his way around and do things. "We should go down to Hagrid's."

"Should we?" Harry asks, and Hermione looks at him for a second.

"Uh, yeah. Remember the, um," she glances at the other children walking past them, and she says, "The egg he's boiling? For tea?" Harry stares at her, completely flummoxed for a second, and then he remembers. The dragon egg.

"Yeah!" he agrees. "Let's run down!" They rush through the halls and down over the grounds, nearly slipping on the slightly damp path down to Hagrid's hut, but they both jump the fence into his pumpkin patch and towards his front door, barely taking the time to knock before they burst into Hagrid's hut. They picked exactly the right time, Harry later reflects: as they enter, a hard little skull is just pushing its way out of the thick, shiny surface of the nut-brown egg.

"There you two are!" Hagrid says, beaming at them and pushing the door shut behind them. Harry and Hermione each perch on Hagrid's sofa, watching as the little dragon beats its way out of the egg. In a strange, slick and slightly disconcerting way, the little monster is almost cute. It's rather like watching a dilapidated, black umbrella hatch from an egg, and once it makes its way completely out Hagrid coos and pets the dragon on the nose. Harry smiles at the sight, but his smile drops a bit abruptly when the dragon sneezes and sets Hagrid's bristled beard on fire.

He puts himself out and reaches for the dragonling with his hands minimally protected by pink ovengloves the size of dustbin lids, stroking over the dragon's scales and cooing sweetly at it, as if it's a new puppy. Fang, letting out soft, whimpering noises, cowers on the ground and flattens himself against Harry and Hermione's feet.

"Hagrid," Hermione says, "You can't be serious about actually keeping that as a pet."

"Him, Hermione," Hagrid says, "He's called Norbert! And he knows who his Mummy is! Yes you do, don't you, Norbert? You know I'm yer Mummy? Yeah, you do!" If Harry hadn't been awake before now, he certainly would be now. The little dragon's huge, bulging eyes are staring right at him as he jabs his claws into the thick fabric of Hagrid's coat, letting out chittering growls and wriggling.

"How, er, how big is it going to get, Hagrid?"

"Well, it's a Norwegian Ridgeback, Harry, judging by what it says in me book. He'll be about thirty, forty feet, once he's all grown up!" The factoid, delivered with a "Who's a good baby for Mummy?" and a little scrunch of Hagrid's nose, leaves Harry forgetting how to close his own mouth.

"Your house is built of wood, Hagrid," Hermione points out. "Your mattress is made of straw."

"Oh, we'll be fine, won't we, Norbert?" he promises, grabbing a bottle of reddish liquid and holding it to Norbert's sharply toothy little mouth, letting him guzzle down the contents. "Just fine!"

* * *

"This is not going to be fine," Harry says as he and Hermione walk up to the Great Hall for dinner. Hermione shakes his head, staring into the middle distance and imagining the numerous ways "little Norbert" could probably kill their well-meaning friend.

"How can he think this is okay?" she asks. "He- he thinks it's so cute."

"Well, when you're Hagrid's size and you can cuddle three-headed puppies, I guess Kneazle kittens don't really cut it," Harry says, and Hermione elbows him for making her laugh. "We need to get rid of it."

"But we can't report it to anyone. He'd be arrested, it's illegal to keep dragons as pets. You need all sorts of licenses and safety precautions." Harry sighs.

"I don't think Hagrid believes in safety precautions," he admits, and Hermione nods her head. "Is there anywhere in the UK that like, takes dragons?"

"I don't know," Hermione answers, and they enter the Great Hall, sharing an uncertain look. "We should maybe look it up."

"Tomorrow, after classes, I guess," Harry agrees with a nod of his head, and he heads over to sit with the Slytherins.

"Ah, the sleeping angel is amongst us once again!" Blaise says as Harry settles across from him, and Harry sticks his tongue out in response. Draco is sat on Blaise's one side, Crabbe on the other, and Harry sits between Goyle and Nott, the latter of whom is examining him carefully. Blaise grins, showing all of his bright, white teeth, and says, "You feeling better, Harry?" Theodore glances at him with obvious concern on his face when Harry meets his gaze, but his posture is relaxed now that he's got a good look at Harry's face and a feel for his demeanour.

"Yeah," Harry says, nodding his head. "Yeah, way better." Draco is conspicuously silent where he's sat next to Blaise, staring down at his dinner plate, and Harry glances at him for a moment before he says, "Sorry about what I said to you yesterday. I didn't mean it, obviously, I was just really tired."

"It's fine," Draco says, stiffness melting out of his body like sand out of an hourglass, as if he hadn't thought Harry would rescind what he'd said. "Besides, I don't put any stock in what you say, Potter." Harry can't help his smile.

"You should, Malfoy. An idiot like you needs someone clever to look up to."

"Oh, yeah?"

"Oh, yeah."

"You need to grow a bit taller then."

"Oi!" The other boys laugh at Harry's sudden indignation, and Harry shakes his head, everything he has to worry about fading from his mind as their food appears on the table and he settles into his usual back-and-forth with his housemates. He feels really relaxed for the first time in a few weeks now.


	15. Year One: Drowsy Dragons

Dinner is good. Harry has a big appetite all of a sudden, and he eats a good deal more than he usually does before standing with the Slytherins to head down to the common room.

"Potter," says a low, quiet voice from behind him despite the loudness of the Great Hall's chatter and talking and yelling, but Snape has no trouble being heard when he wants to be. Harry hasn't actually seen his Potions Master raise his voice yet, and he has to wonder what sort of situation would necessitate. "You're out of the hospital wing, I see."

"Guess you don't need glasses as much as I do, sir," Harry agrees, and Snape's hand moves so fast Harry doesn't even see it: he grasps at the back of his head, letting out a surprised huff of laughter at the clip that caught him upside his hair, and he stares up at the man in amazement. It hadn't even felt like a hit, not really, it had just caught him off guard, and it doesn't even hurt. It's not anything like getting hit at home.

"Dispense with the cheek, Potter," Snape say lowly, face tinging slightly to a colour that could be called pink, if it was watered down with formaldehyde. "Your work, to be completed by Thursday." Snape pushes a set of papers into Harry's hand, his sallow, bony fingers keeping the little bundle together. Harry takes it, looking at the written out potion in interest, and at the ingredients list attached. "I will arrive at precisely 9:30. You will take your potion, you will go to bed, you will sleep. Is that quite clear?"

"Yes, sir," Harry says with a nod of his head. "Thanks." Snape stares down at him, expression set into the parody of neutrality you have to have when your face is incapable of implying anything but a not-so-subtle want to murder everyone around you. Harry opens his mouth, wondering if Snape is expectant, but then he closes it and just slowly steps back, rushing after the other Slytherins towards the common room.

"Did he just hit you?" Blaise asks, eyebrows raised in surprise as they walk through the corridors and down towards through the corridor.

"Not really," Harry says, shaking his head with a grin. "He just sort of slapped past my hair, really. You'd think he'd never actually hit someone." Blaise furrows his dark brows, tilting his head a little at the response. "It didn't even hurt," Harry assures him, and Blaise accepts this an an answer, giving a nod.

"Professor Snape hit you?" Afifa asks when he comes into the common room, apparently having heard it from someone else coming in, and Harry stares up at her, a bit exasperated.

"No. Or at least, if he was trying to hit me, he doesn't have much of an idea. It didn't even hurt." Everyone being concerned with it strikes him as a bit over the top, especially given that this is a boarding school. Isn't corporal punishment a bit more standard here? Afifa looks concerned, though, so Harry tries not to look too annoyed,

"What did you say to him?" Afifa asks. Harry's lip twitches, and he looks at his feet for a second as he tries not to grin.

"Uh, he said he could see I was out of the hospital wing, and I said I supposed he doesn't need glasses as much as I do." Afifa does a very good job of keeping her face straight, but Frank and the girls she'd been sat with all start to laugh, tossing back their heads. "He didn't laugh either," Harry points out.

"You're an idiot, Potter," Afifa says, doing her best not to make it sound like a compliment. "But at least he didn't take any points off you. Go get some work done." Harry moves into the corner of the room, where the other first year lads are settled around a table by the fire, cards spread out on the table, and as he approaches Theo deals Harry into the game. The cards don't talk to you like wizarding chess pieces do, but occasionally they'll wriggle and let out noises of complaint at the way you're sorting your hand.

They only play a few games of Gin Rummy and then a game called Cheat that Draco suggests. That is, until Theo realizes that Blaise is cheating at Cheat.

"You just put down six cards!"

"Don't be ridiculous."

"You said three, and you put down six! Have you been doing this the whole time?" Harry tries to hide his laughter behind his hand, but Draco laughs openly as Blaise lays down his cards and puts up his palms in a gesture of peace. Theo flicks his cards at Blaise, standing dramatically and declaring, "I'm going to bed!" as the others laugh around him. Draco pulls himself up, also heading down the corridor to his and Harry's room. Looking to the stack of papers Snape had given him, Harry lays out the ingredient list and the potion's process in front of him, also grasping at his copy of One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi.

"You're going to do that now?" Blaise asks, muttering to the cards to keep still as he begins to stack them carefully into a card castle.

"May as well. What time is it? Nine?" Blaise nods his head, and Harry begins to look up each of the ingredients on the page in Magical Herbs and Fungi to see their effects and purposes. Flobberworm mucus, beetle eyes, powdered hawk talon... If he can't do it like this, looking at the sheet of ingredients and the potion's instructions, he'll brew it tomorrow, but there are only a few more clues you get from brewing it, really, like smells and colours. Short of testing it, he supposes, but Harry's not about to test out a potion if he has no idea what it does without knowing if he's even made it correctly.

He's very quiet as he works, drawing connections between each ingredient. This is the sort of exercise they'll have to complete on their final exams - most of the marks at this stage of study are to do with knowing the properties of moonstone, or the importance of using the right cauldron, but as the years go on puzzling out the function of a potion just looking at its process or its ingredients will come more to the forefront. It's a strange skill, Harry thinks, but he's seen Dudley watching Gordon Ramsay on the television, and he occasionally makes his chefs eat food and try and figure out what's in it. Snape and Ramsay would get on, Harry expects, and he smirks to himself at the thought.

What happens next has to be described to Harry in its full form at breakfast the next morning. The common room door slides open with a soft slide of stone on stone, and no one really pays it any attention until their Head of House steps into the room. Throughtout the common room, sprawled on couches or lounging in their chairs, the older Slytherins all sit up straight and watch him carefully: Professor Snape rarely comes into the common room, according to Frank Richelieu, preferring to someone students to his office if anything's necessary, and so when he appears it's a bit of an event.

Harry, working hard on the problem in front of him, doesn't pay the sudden silence behind him any heed, staring down at the ingredients and frowning.

"I could just tell you," Blaise offers, flicking cards between his fingers.

"Cheating at cards makes the game more fun," Harry replies absently, "I don't want to cheat at this. Besides, I've nearly got it." He mutters ingredients under his breath, trying to force his brain to make the connections he needs. At this point, without Harry's having noticed him at all, Snape is directly behind the padded bench he and Blaise are seated on, leaning over slightly and examining Harry's workings over his shoulder, and Harry is expectedly oblivious. "It's a Forgetfulness Potion!" he says triumphantly, grinning as he circles active properties on his ingredients list with a scruffy hand and adding his name to the top of the page. "Isn't it? Yeah. Yeah."

"Yeah, Mr Potter," Snape agrees, stepping to the side of the table. Blaise and Harry stare up at him, the silence of the room hitting them at once. "It is. A point from Slytherin, Mr Zabini."

"Yes, sir," Blaise agrees, making no move to quibble.

"Sorry, sir, I'll just-" Harry chucks his book, ink bottle and quill into his bag, but Snape sets Harry's prescribed potion on the table, taking Harry's notes and folding them into a neat pile before tucking them into his robes. Harry stares at the man's chest for a second, trying to work out how someone could fit a pocket into a garment that's at least 80% pockets, and then he looks at the potion bottle.

It definitely does look like a brand thing - Harry doesn't know everything about the Hogwarts Potions Master, but he's pretty certain Snape would never paint a bottle to look like a Common Welsh Green, beaming brightly around its stopper.

"Why's it called Drowsy Dragon?" Harry asks, pushing forwards his glass of pumpkin juice and watching as Snape puts two drops into it.

"I don't know, Potter. I don't care." Harry takes his glass back, drinking everything he has left in it and setting it down. The potion sets a bitter note to the drink, and it takes effect almost as soon as he's swallowed, making him feel tired where a second ago he'd been wide awake.

"Thank you, Professor," Harry says, and Snape doesn't bother replying, merely inclining his head slightly and leaving the room as Harry and Blaise head in the direction of bed. There's no tossing and turning for Harry that night, focused on what magic can do to a person, or what someone could use it for. He just brushes his teeth, puts on his pyjamas, and lies down. As soon as he's tucked up in bed, he sleeps.

* * *

"And you didn't notice he was there at all?" Hermione asks, her deep brown eyes wide.

"No! Apparently he was there for a minute or two, watching me work and Blaise mess about with the cards. Do you think his shoes are enchanted or something? There has to be some magic in his robes, the way they billow like that, and if you're going to enchant your robes, why not do your shoes as well?"

"Don't be stupid," Hermione says. "Why would he enchant his shoes?"

"Why would he style his hair the way he does?" Hermione shakes her head disapprovingly, trying not to laugh, and Harry says, "I'm not saying it makes sense. I'm just saying he probably has."

"You want enchanted shoes, don't you?" Hermione asks. "That's what you dreamt about when that Drowsy Dragon put you to sleep. Magic shoes." Harry grins, pulling a book from the pile beside them and scanning the page. Their search for British dragon sanctuaries isn't going well. Every sanctuary in the UK seems to have closed down in the past two decades, owing mostly to the owners treasuring their limbs and lives over the prickly affection of their dragons. And even then, none of them took Norwegian Ridgebacks - they were considered too vicious.

It's not exactly comfrorting news. "There's one in France, near Calais..." Harry glances up. That's actually quite close- "Oh, wait, no. It only takes sea dragons. I think we're going to have to ask one of the centres in Eastern Europe, Harry. There just aren't any nearby that take them."

"You'd think a Norwegian dragon place would want one, wouldn't you? A Norwegian Ridgeback."

"Yeah, for some reason, Harry, they don't want more vicious, spiny, venomous dragons the size of lorries wandering through the frozen tundra."

"You're not any good at sarcasm," Harry says affectionately. "Do you know that?"

"Shut up," Hermione says, and then, "Oh, look, there's the twins. I've never seen them in the library before."

"They're probably here to nick something," Harry says. "Percy was saying that Charlie and them once-" Harry stops talking, staring at the twins as they stop to talk quietly to one another, looking very seriously at each other's faces and then up at the second floor of the library.

"Charlie and them once what?"

"Oi! Fred, George!"

"Shush!" hisses Madam Pince, hoving out from between the shelves like a snake, and Harry whispers an apology at her as he silently, wildly, waves for the twins to come over. They stride over as one, looking expectantly down at Harry.

"And what does our favourite little snake want now, eh?"

"Deeds to the family home?"

"Mum's wedding ring?"

"Dad's wedding ring?"

"Your brother."

"You can have him," Fred says immediately. "He's free."

"Not Ron."

"Damn," George says. "Well-"

"Not Percy, either," George sighs loudly, rolling his eyes, as Fred hides his face in his hands. "I need you guys to write Charlie for me."

"What don't we do for you, Potter?" Fred asks, leaning his elbows on his brother's shoulders as George sits down at the table. "We'll be doing your homework for you next."

"I doubt it," Hermione says snarkily. "I expect he wants to pass his classes." Fred and George glance at Hermione, seeming amused. Harry can't decide whether they like her or not - she's not normally the sort of person they expect to see on their side, but Harry feels like the twins have an appreciation for the fact that her best friend is a Slytherin, even if they don't actually like Slytherins themselves, as a rule.

"We'll deal with you later," George promises, or threatens, maybe. Harry isn't actually sure. "Why do you want us to write Charlie?" This, Harry thinks, is the best thing about the Weasley twins. They're very willing to involve themselves in chaos and schemes and the like, even while they complete their own ones in the background, but they're also really curious. They honestly want to know what's going on, and that's what Harry is counting on.

"Hypothetically," Harry says, and Hermione hides her face in her book, apparently disapproving of Harry's plan before he's even tried to set it in motion. "If you had a dragon, and you wanted to get rid of it, what would you do?"

"Let it eat Marcus Flint, Ministry comes to take it away, job done," Fred answers cleanly, looking too satisfied with his answer. "Easy."

"If you wanted to get rid of it alive, and you needed to keep it completely secret until it was gone." Fred's eyebrows are furrowed as he peers down at Harry, and George puts his hand on his own chin, shifting his position slightly so that Fred can lean on him better.

"Where did you get a dragon?" he asks.

"It's not my dragon," Harry says quickly. "But if you wrote Charlie, it could be his dragon."

"What's in it for us? You already owe us two favours."

"One favour."

"Two," George insists. What is in it for them? Harry starts to think quickly, but Hermione gets there first.

"I'll put the horror of your choice in Percy's bed while you two are in classes and you have deniability." Harry stares at her, taken aback at the offer.

"Hermione!" he says. "That's- that's- that's against a rule." Then again, Harry reconsiders when she glares at him, smuggling an illegal dragon illegally out of the castle and illegally out of the country is a bit against the rules too. Her expression is entirely determined, and Harry feels a distinct and overwhelming admiration for her.

"Agreed," Fred and George say together before Hermione has a chance to reconsider. "You two are getting to be terrific little criminals, you know," George says approvingly. "Maybe you'll be the first people to ever break out of Azkaban."

"Azkaban?" Hermione says, horrified. "The wizard prison?"

"Don't worry," Harry hisses to her, gesturing for her to keep her voice down. "You're not going to get arrested for putting a dung bomb under Percy's pillow."

"Well-" Fred starts. "You could. Theoretically." That's the bad thing about the Weasley twins, though. They like to provoke chaos out of anyone.

* * *

Fred and George send Hedwig with their letter, and Harry instructs her to make her way there and back as soon as she can, preferably without getting eaten by any dragons on the way. She gives him an affectionate nip on the ear before she makes her way off, soon becoming a speckled white dot in the distance. "I thought you'd already written Charlie?" George asks suddenly as they make their way down the slightly slippery, narrow steps down to the bottom of the owlery.

"Did you just remember that?" Harry asks, walking a little bit faster.

"Merlin's trousers," Fred complains. "I'd forgotten about that. You lying little sneak."

"We wouldn't be friends if I wasn't a lying little sneak," Harry points out in what he feels is a reasonable tone, and Fred and George consider this for a moment before accepting the point. They don't actually mind being lied to, Harry surmises, if it's in the name of law-breaking or general tomfoolery. "I'm gonna go and meet Hermione at Hagrid's hut, okay?"

"Righto, Potter. We'll see you at the performance later." Harry glances back, raising his eyebrows. Performance? But the twins are already running off in the direction of the castle.

* * *

"Well," Harry says as he and Harry walk up the path from Hagrid's hut. "I think that went alright."

"He didn't cry as much as I thought he would," Hermione says, though she looks severely uncomfortable - on the last bellowing blow of Hagrid's nose into his towel-sized handkerchief, she'd been standing a bit close for her liking. She'd taken the lead in breaking the news to Hagrid and in laying out their plan, but Hagrid hadn't argued too strongly. This was partly, Harry suspects, due to the swollen bite on the side of his neck.

"No," Harry agrees. "And I think some of the crying was because Norbert bit his knee."

"Come on," Hermione says, gesturing for Harry to come up the stairs towards the Gryffindor Common Room. Harry hangs back slightly as they slip inside, but there's no worry of his tie being noticed: they've come in just as the show is starting. Percy runs down the stairs in just a pair of boxers, painted from head to toe in forget-me-not spots, and for a second Harry thinks he's going to up and grab one of his brothers by the throat.

"Oh, Perce," Fred says, dodging out of the taller boy's way as George snatches his wand, "Come on! Don't look so blue!" Harry hides his mouth behind his hand, but Hermione doesn't bother, her lips twitching as she doesn't quite smile.

"I can't believe it," George says, "It's been months since I've seen him without his Prefect badge - I assumed he pinned it to his underwear when he didn't have his robes on!"

"Twenty points from Gryffindor!" Percy snaps as the Gryffindors in the Common Room cheer, and Hermione and Harry carefully step out of the portrait hole again.

"You oughtn't come in here so often," says the Fat Lady disapprovingly.

"You should take it as a compliment," Harry retorts. "Most Slytherins wouldn't bother."

"How dare you-"

* * *

"Thank you, Professor," Harry says, putting forth his glass of pumpkin juice the same way he has for the past week. He glances up at Snape, who administers the two necessary drops with the same perfunctory distaste, "Sorry you had to come down here every night."

"Were you left to give yourself your own draught, Potter, you would have undoubtedly killed yourself. Dosages of these potions for creatures as young and undernourished as yourself are delicately balanced." Well, Harry thinks. That's not disconcerting at all.

"Thanks," Harry says, mildly nervously, and he holds the glass to his mouth, drinking up his juice. Snape watches him, black gaze as concentrated as usual, and then he gives a nod, walking out of the common room. Harry waits for a moment, letting the teacher leave, and then he sets the glass down on a table, carefully removing the plastic insert for his sleeping potion that he'd made out of one of Hermione's old retainers. Pulling out his Invisibility Cloak from where he'd stashed it behind an old photograph on one of the mantelpieces, he slides it over his head and makes his way out.

He moves as quietly as he can out of the common room and through the dungeon corridors towards the entrance hall, holding the transparent piece of plastic carefully between his fingers. Careful dosages, Snape had said, so he'll only give Norbert half of it.

"This is a terrible idea," Hermione hisses as they run down to Hagrid's, the both of them pressed tightly together under the cloak to avoid being seen.

"Well, yeah," Harry says. "I don't think any of us thinks it's any good!" Harry drops a little of the excess potion into Norbert's mix of brandy and chicken blood as soon as he and Hermione get into Hagrid's hut, but he gives the task of feeding the little monster to Hagrid. Not that little applies all that much anymore. It's been only a week, and Norbert's already almost the size of Fang.

"Wha'd you give him?" Hagrid asks as Norbert snuffles and goes almost willingly into the padded crate, curling into a tiny, leathery ball.

"Nothing, nothing," Harry lies. "He's just a bit drowsy, that all. You think we can lift him, Hermione?"

"We'll have to," Hermione says, gritting her teeth as she clasps one underside of Norbert's crate, and they bow their heads, letting Hagrid drop the cloak over their backs. Movement up to the castle and to the bottom of the Astronomy Tower is a little bit slow, because baby dragons are surprisingly hefty, but Harry is just glad they'd knocked it out. He's seen Norbert bouncing off the walls of Hagrid's hut, and he shudders to think what it would be like in just a little wooden crate.

"Hey!" Harry whispers to the Weasley twins, both of whom turn wildly towards them.

"I told you he was on the map," George mutters, shoving a bit of old parchment into his back pocket, and Fred elbows him. "You there, Potter?" He and Hermione put the crate on the ground and Harry pulls the cloak off, glancing back towards the corridor. He can hear scuffling and distant footsteps, but because of the way the castle carries sound it's always difficult to figure out which way someone's coming from.

"Bloody Hell," Fred whispers. "That's not an invisibility cloak, is it?" Harry opens his mouth to retort that it's none of Fred's business, but then there's a set of much, much closer footsteps, and Fred says, "Merlin's balls."

"Yes, it is!" Harry hisses, pulling Fred and George to crouch over the crate and throwing the cloak over their heads. "And I want it back, do you hear me? It was my dad's, so if you lose it, or nick it, dragon smuggling's gonna be the least of your worries."

"Ooh, feisty-" George starts, but Harry kicks him hard in the shin to shut him up, and he and Hermione run towards the entrance of the tower's stairwell so as not to be found too close to the invisible trio.

"Who's there?" demands a voice in the corridors, and Hermione looks like she's about to melt into the stonework. McGonagall. Of course it had to be McGonagall, just their luck. But then there's a loud scuffle, a smacking sound, and then, "Mr Weasley! Mr Malfoy! What in goodness' name are you two doing out of bed?" Exchanging uncertain glances, Hermione and Harry lean out of the doorway to the tower's stairwell. Behind them, Harry hears Fred and George muttering to each other as they make their way up the stairs.

"Uh, nothing, Professor McGonagall," Weasley says. "Just, er-"

"Exploring the Hogwarts hallways? At nearly midnight?"

"Er-"

"And you, Mr Malfoy. I don't suppose you have a better excuse?"

"I was just looking for- that is to say, I," Malfoy's silver tongue doesn't seem to be serving him very well tonight. "I got lost," he finishes, unconvincingly. Harry shakes his head at the poor performance, as much as at the entire situation.

"He must have realized I'd left," Harry whispers to Harry as he watches McGonagall drag to the two of them up the hallway and to an empty classroom. "And went to look for me."

"Ron probably saw the twins leave," Hermione says, nodding her head, and her and Harry begin to creep up the corridor. Harry feels almost naked, traversing the corridors like this without the cloak, but so long as the two of them can just make it to the staircases, they can split apart and probably make it to their common rooms without being noticed, just so long as-

"Oh, naughty naughty ickle firsties!" says a high, reedy, mocking voice, ringing with delight.

Just as long as, for example, Peeves doesn't see them.


	16. Year One: Detention

"Oi, Potter," Fred says when Harry comes into the Entrance Hall, and he and George approach him quickly. They look completely well-rested, as if they hadn't hauled a dragon up a flight of spiral stairs at midnight the night before. As Fred demonstrates a ridiculous set of purple sparks from his wand, George surreptitiously hands Harry's cloak to him, and Harry folds it carefully into the bottom of his bag.

"Thanks," he whispers. It had kept him up a little the night before, worrying that the twins wouldn't give it back: Gryffindors are hyperfocused on honour and nobility, but relief still sings through Harry in waves.

"Our little brother got caught last night," George says disapprovingly, shaking his head in disappointment, "He must have followed us out. But apparently you did too."

"Draco and Ron must have run into each other, both trying to find us, and McGonagall caught them," Harry explains as they walk into the Great Hall. Harry wipes sleep from his eyes and tries to ignore the resounding want of his body to go back to bed - he's certain that Snape would haul him out by the scruff of his neck if he tried to claim illness after being caught out of bed last night. "Me and Hermione would have been fine, but Peeves saw us." George laughs, and Fred does too, but Harry doesn't take it as an insult.

"Charlie took the dragon okay, and he's going to send an owl once they've got it safely home. They said it was a good shout putting the thing to sleep, though, made it easier," Fred says, and Harry nods his head. Even if he and Hermione did get caught and will undoubtedly face some horrible detention, Norbert got away, Hagrid isn't going to be arrested, and he has his dad's cloak back - it could have gone much, much worse. "What detention are you serving?"

"I don't know," Harry admits. "Last time it was just cleaning out cauldrons for Snape for an hour or so each night, but McGonagall implied it was going to be particularly nasty, I think just because it was four students out of bed on the same night, and in different houses too." Fred and George nod, seeming to understand, and then, to Harry's complete surprise, George ruffles his hair.

"Off you go, then, you slimy little reptile. Face your peers." Harry shoves him in the side, and the twins veer off, laughing, to their own table, as Harry makes his way to sit with the Slytherins. Draco is in a sour mood, lips twisted into a scowl as he pokes vigorously at a kipper without actually trying to eat it. Wisely, Harry doesn't try and make conversation.

* * *

Something is dripping in the potions office. It's not a completely regular drip, so Harry guesses it's not a pipe or an open tap, but every few seconds there's a quiet per-lisk as it drops down into a pool of something, and the noise echoes in the silence of the room. He can barely hear himself or Draco breathing, and Snape isn't making a single sound.

He sits back in his chair, hands folded into his lap, back ramrod straight: on his face, twisting his ugly lips and filling Harry with a quiet dread, is a scowl. His gaze bores into the both of them, and while Snape will occasionally blink, he's so entirely still that Harry could almost believe him some kind of horrible parody of a statue. Now and then, he or Draco will open their mouths to say something, but Snape's scowl will deepen and his brow will furrow just a fraction more, and they'll close them again.

Harry doesn't know how long they've been standing there, listening to the irregular drip and trying not to shake as their Head of House stares at them, but it must have been at least ten minutes, maybe even half an hour.

"Your detentions," Snape says in barely more than a whisper, the sound carrying around the room, "Will be tonight, at nine sharp. You will arrive in the Entrance Hall at that time."

"Isn't that a bit, uh, late, sir? For a detention?" Draco asks, and Snape's head seems to move almost robotically on his neck as he looks directly at him.

"Indeed," Snape agrees, "Though it would also be late to be wandering around the castle with two Gryffindors in tow, would it not, Mr Malfoy?" Harry hears the audible gulp of air Draco takes down his throat.

"What will the detention be, sir?"

"Shut up, Mr Potter."

"Are you going to tell my-"

"Shut up, Mr Malfoy." The three of them return to judgemental silence, Draco and Harry doing their best to keep still under Snape's acidic glare, and finally, Snape says, "Get out." Neither Harry nor Draco need to be told twice, and the two of them virtually run out of Snape's office.

"Do you think he will tell my father?" Draco asks, looking anxious at the prospect as they walk up the stairs towards Charms class.

"You should write him before Snape does," Harry suggests. "Own up to it. I'll write him too, and apologize and say it was all my fault - I'll say I was going to duel Ron Weasley, and that you agreed to be my second." Lucius Malfoy, Harry has discovered, hates the Weasleys, and although Harry's never actually written to Arthur Weasley, his wife has made it pretty clear that the animosity between the Weasleys and the Malfoys is mutual. Draco bites his lip.

"Are you sure?" he asks, not at all looking his arrogant self for a moment or two, and Harry glances at him. If his father was alive, would he love the man as much as Draco loves his father? Would he be consistently terrified of disappointing him?

"Yeah, I'm sure," Harry says. "Your mum will still be annoyed, but at least Lucius will be on your side."

"Don't call my father Lucius, Harry," Draco complains, stepping into the classroom.

"What am I meant to call him? Steve? Anita?"

* * *

Even with a little light-heartedness throughout the day, Harry and Draco remain mostly quiet in their classes, and when Harry settles to partner with Hermione in Potions come the afternoon, she's equally subdued. "What do you think it's going to be?" she asks quietly. "Something in the greenhouses?"

"Maybe," Harry murmurs, crushing some hydrangea stems under his pestle. "But they'd probably have told us to wear gloves for that. I think it might be something on the Quidditch pitch, revarnishing the fencing or something." Hermione nods her head, dread obvious on her features. Harry's never been a stranger to physical labour, and he thinks that for that reason the Hogwarts detentions don't usually upset him as much as they do some of the other students - they're an inconvenience, yeah, and they're definitely a deterrent, but when you've hand-washed Dudley Dursley's rugby gear, cleaning out an old cauldron or polishing a trophy is nothing.

"You Slytherins," Ron hisses from the next desk, aiming this at Hermione and Harry, presumably because Draco is on the other side of the room, trying to stop Crabbe and Goyle from blowing up the dungeons.

"I'm not a Slytherin, Ron," Hermione points out helpfully as Neville winces at Ron's obvious fury.

"It's your fault I've got detention!"

"You can't blame us for your getting caught, Weasley," Harry replies. "Just like you can't blame us for the acid you've just brewed up."

"What?" Ron demands, and then lets out a yell as he and Neville stumble back from their desk, Harry stands on his chair, gesturing for Hermione to do the same, and he helps her step across the room over a spare table to a distance a few feet away. Neville, lacking in both Ron's strategy of hopping back or Harry's foresight in reaching higher ground, lets out a whine of pain as his boots begin to boil.

"I'll help Longbottom to the hospital wing, sir," Harry says. "Finnegan, Thomas, d'you guys want to give me a hand?" Although they show a reluctance to go with Harry, the two Gryffindors seem to understand that the alternative to them is probably Crabbe and Goyle, and so they help Harry lift Neville to the edge of the room.

"How're the feet, Neville?" Harry asks as they make their way awkwardly down the corridor. Neville's hands are both grasping very, very tightly at Harry's left wrist, which gives him a clue to the answer in advance.

"Not so bad," Neville spits out, gritting his teeth so harshly that Harry winces. "Could be worse."

"Well," Dean says, "Can't say you're not brave about it, can we?"

"S'alright, Neville," Seamus says comfortingly. "At least you've not burned your eyebrows off, eh?" Harry had thought Seamus' brow was looking a bit bald recently.

"Keep up the Gryffindor courage," Harry says. "Nearly there. Madam Pomfrey!"

"Potter, you've not done something else!" comes the retort from down the corridor, and Seamus and Dean have to hide their snickers in the shoulders of their robes.

"Neville's burned his shoes with a messed up boil remover," Harry says to her as she comes out into the corridor, and the three of them release Neville as she levitates him into the hair. "Is he going to be alright?"

"Oh, you'll be fine, Longbottom," Madam Pomfrey promises, answering Harry but directing the words at Neville. "I'll cool them down then I'll remove them, but the skin will grow back."

"Oh," says Neville, weakly, "Well, that's good."

* * *

"Has Neville been returned yet?" Harry asks as he comes into the Entrance Hall, and Hermione glances up, nodding her head.

"Yeah. He's walking just fine, too, but Seamus say his feet look terrible." Harry makes a face, but nods his head in sympathy. Neville had looked positively green as Madam Pomfrey had brought him into the infirmary, and by the time Seamus, Dean and him had all walked down to the classroom, everyone had gone. Hermione had put his bag right to the side of the room, out of the way, and Harry had picked it up, shouldering it as Dean and Seamus left. At his desk, Snape had been marking essays, concentrated on the messily scrawled pages in front of him, so Harry hadn't said anything, he'd just gone to leave. But then... "Snape gave me ten points, you know," he says to her, quietly. Ron and Draco aren't around yet, but they will be soon, "For "taking initiative", apparently."

"He didn't give any to Seamus and Dean, did he?" Hermione asks, looking affronted at the unfairness of it.

"It's Snape, Hermione. A Gryffindor could pull him out of a burning building and he'd take ten points off them for creasing his jeans." Hermione laughs.

"He doesn't wear jeans, Harry."

"He might. We've only ever seen him around Hogwarts, but he might well be raised by Muggles, like us two." Hermione shakes her head.

"I doubt it," she says. "I- to be honest, I can't really imagine him having family. I mean, obviously he must, he didn't hatch out of an egg, but he's just so- Can you imagine him sitting down to a Christmas dinner with his mum and dad, and a little sister or something? Saying "Please pass the brocolli." or "Isn't the snow lovely outside?" Harry starts to laugh so hard he can't manage an answer, and when Ron and Draco finally arrive, a minute before nine, he's doubled over and red in the face with laughter.

"What are you laughing at?" Ron and Draco demand as one, and then turn to glare at each other.

"Nothing," Harry wheezes out, trying to stand straight as Hermione sympathetically pats his back and calls him an idiot under her breath. "It's not even funny."

"Ah, you're all here," Filch grumbles as he comes into the room, Mrs Norris hot on his heels. Hermione had tried to pet the little rat of a feline once, leaning down and offering her her palm, and Mrs Norris had left a scram all up her wrist. Harry despises the thing far more than he does Filch. Filch sounds disappointed about their presence, and Harry tunes him out as the four of them trail after him, outside and down the path.

"What are we doing tonight?" Draco demands, doing his best to sound haughty and making a similar effort not to sound as anxious as he is.

"You'll be helping the groundskeeper in the forest."

"Hagrid?" Harry asks at the same time Draco says, "In the forest?"

"Yep," Filch says, and Harry and Hermione share a look as Hagrid comes into view. Fang is sat at his feet as he loads his crossbow with bolts, and Harry suddenly feels a bit less good-humoured about the whole situation. "Here you are, Hagrid. I've just been-"

"Ah, off with yer, Filch, you miserable old sod," Hagrid says ill-temperedly. "Yeh've been complaing to 'em about thumb screws and that again, haven't ya? Taken you long enough." Filch lets out an irritable noise, but he doesn't bother to reply, rushing back up to the castle and the comforting paws of his evil feline. It'd be funny if Harry weren't so scared right now.

"Hagrid," Harry says cautiously, "Did he mean the Forbidden Forest?"

"Yep," Hagrid nods, picking up lanterns and handing them to Ron and Harry. "We'll split into two groups. Ron, you'll be with me. Hermione, Harry, Malfoy, you'll go off together."

"We want Fang," Malfoy says suddenly.

"No, we don't," Harry corrects him. "You can keep Fang." To make up for any offence, Harry pats Fang's somehow slobbery head gently. "He'll run away faster than you will, Draco, at the first sign of trouble."

"What sort of trouble? What are we actually doing? I'm going to tell my father about-"

"Draco, calm down," Harry says sharply, and Draco shuts his mouth with an audible click, going even paler than usual.

"Summat in the forest's been killing unicorns, and I've seen blood out in the forest today, which means one of 'em is wounded. We want to try and find it, and help it, or- or, well. Put it out of its misery." Hagrid looks quite upset at the prospect, and normally Harry would feel a bit of sympathy for the unicorn, but now? He's not really in the mood.

"No offence, Hagrid," Harry says evenly, "But can't something that kills unicorns kill us pretty easily?"

"Yeh'll be fine," Hagrid assures Harry unconvincingly. Harry's never going to illegally smuggle a dragon out of the country again.

"But aren't there werewolves in the forest?" Draco asks shakily. "You know, and things like that?" Harry remembers the stupid Lycanthropy book Athene Greengrass had sent him the money for, and tries to keep his tone gentle and understanding as Ron spits, "Shut up, Malfoy."

"It's a crescent moon, Draco. No werewolves."

"Yeah," Ron says, "Just giant spiders, and snakes, fire-breathing lizards, and things that eat unicorns." He looks positively gleeful as he stares Draco down.

"You know, Ron," Harry says. "Hagrid's a pretty intimidating target, so whatever's out there will eat you first."

"Settle down, now," Hagrid says loudly, spreading out his giant hands as Hermione pinches the bridge of her nose in irritation. "Settle down. Now, once you find it, send up some green sparks with your wand. If yer in danger or one of you is hurt, send up red sparks."

"Or just scream in agony and terror?" Draco asks sarcastically, but Hagrid doesn't seem to be that cognizant of his tone.

"Yeah," he agrees. Harry hands Hermione the lantern, pulling his wand out of his robes, and the two groups split up. The path into the forest isn't properly made or lined with stone or anything, but it's well-trodden, and Harry thinks he sees hoof prints in some of the ground.

"There are centaurs in this forest," Hermione says, following his gaze. "They mentioned it in one of the footnotes of Hogwarts: A History."

"I never read footnotes," Harry confesses. "Never read the indexes either."

"How are you two so calm?" Draco hisses.

"Well," Harry says, "My life started out with Voldemort murdering my parents, and her parents are dentists, so we're pretty accustomed to trauma, I guess."

"What the bloody Hell is a dentist?" Draco demands, and Harry lets out a laugh that doesn't make him feel any less nervous.

"Stop it, Harry, you're worse than Ron. They're like- They're Muggle Healers, Malfoy, but for people's teeth." Draco nods his head, and they walk a little farther into the forest, holding the lantern aloft to see the ground better. "Does it glow in the dark, do you think?" Hermione asks, and Harry shakes his head.

"No, there's some on the top shelf of the potions supply cupboard - it's that silvery stuff. It looks like liquid mercury. Quicksilver," Harry amends when Draco looks confusedly at him, and they keep on going.

"He shouldn't have done this," Draco says suddenly. "It's- it's ridiculous, sending eleven-year-olds into the forest like this. I'm going to write my father."

"This morning," Harry points out, "You were terrified of writing your father about this."

"That was when I thought it was a normal detention!" Draco half-yells, and the sound echoes through the forest's dank, dismal trees. In the distance, there's a harsh chattering sound, and then a loud thump. They all go still for a second, holding out their wands, but then it goes silent again, and they cautiously begin to walk again. "Why were you two out of bed anyway? I only left 'cause I saw you'd left, Harry. You weren't really going to duel Weasley, were you? Granger wasn't your second?"

"Duel?" Hermione asks quizzically.

"It was a lie I suggested he tell his dad," Harry explains, "And no, it wasn't a duel. We were meeting the Weasley twins for something that's none of your business. That's why Ron was out of bed - he followed them."

"What were you meeting them for?"

"None of your business is still none of your business, Draco, thanks for asking."

"You shouldn't be so chummy with them," Draco says forebodingly. "They could do you all sorts of damage."

"They're geniuses," Harry retorts, "And they're actually alright, so long as you keep them at a distance. At least I don't keep sucking up to Marcus Flint."

"What's wrong with that?"

"He looks like a troll, and he acts like one."

"Well, I'm not friends with mudbloods," Draco snaps out, and they all go abruptly still. Hermione's spine is as stiff as a rod, and Harry clenches his fist.

"Yeah, Draco, you're not. You wouldn't meet their standards." Draco lunges for him, and Harry tries to push him off him but he loses his balance, falling back and onto the ground, and he'd have gotten right up and smacked the other boy, but-

"Oh, God, no," Harry says as the wet splish of sound sings wetly in his ears. He can feel it soaking thickly into his robes, and he stares up at Hermione and Draco. "Please tell me it's not on you."

"It's not on you," Draco offers, as Hermione says, "It's all over you, Harry." That's the real difference between the two of them, Harry thinks grimly. Tact versus pragmatism. Harry pulls himself up, unbuckling his cloak and pulling it away. A little has gotten into his robes, and he can feel it wet and slick on his back, but most of it is only on the cloak.

"Voldemort aside," Harry says, "This is the worst thing that's ever happened to me."

"Stop saying his name," Draco hisses, and Harry suppresses the urge to throw his bloody cloak over the other boy's face. "It must be close," he says as Hermione and Harry glare at him, and he points down the trail of silver. They step awkwardly through the underbrush, dipping to avoid branches as they come away from the path a bit. There's blood everywhere, little droplets spattered all over the ground, and Harry's sympathy comes all in one go, making his chest ache.

"There it is," he whispers, and they all stop short at the edge of the clearing, staring at the unicorn where it's sprawled out on its side. A wound is harshly visible along its side, and it's breathing shakily, letting out pained whinnies. It's the saddest thing Harry's ever seen, its legs unevenly laid out around it, and he takes a step forwards, but Hermione stops him, passing him the lantern.

"They don't like men," she whispers, and he nods his head, stepping back again. Draco sends green sparks up into the forest canopy, and he and Harry glance to the right as the answering sparks are sent back. Hermione stumbles towards the unicorn, dropping to her knees and ignoring the way the blood gets onto the skirt of her own cloak. She puts out a hand, very very carefully touching the creature's neck, and the unicorn whines, its eyes going wide for a second before it seems to relax a little. Harry doesn't know how long he and Draco stand there at a safe distance, watching Hermione stroke the unicorn's neck, but when its chest finally stops moving, Hermione stands up suddenly, sniffling and wiping her nose on her sleeve. Harry reaches out to hug her, but then he sees it.

He grabs Hermione's robe and pulls her forward, dragging her with him, and the cloaked thing's hand just misses grabbing her hair. Harry's scar is burning pain into his flesh and through his skull, and Harry lets out a harsh noise as he, Hermione and Draco begin to run. They run together, but Draco rushes off in the wrong direction, and Harry lets out a noise of frustration as he and Hermione keep moving.

Seeing Hagrid's lantern in the distance, Hermione runs towards him, and Harry says, "I'm going to go get Draco."

"What? Harry-"

"I can find him, don't worry-" And red sparks appear some distance away. Harry sprints, ducking down through the trees, and he skids down a little ditch and out to Draco. The other Slytherin is on his side, biting hard at the inside of his cheeks to keep from crying out.

"What have you hurt?" Harry demands.

"My ankle," Draco says breathily, "I think I've broken it."

"Well done, idiot," Harry says, and Draco lets out the pained laugh Harry had hoped to elicit. He shifts forwards, putting his arm under Draco's and pulling the other boy up. Draco leans heavily on him, unable to put any weight on his injured leg. Harry's skull is still throbbing with pain, but he tries to ignore it and support Draco.

Harry's blood runs cold as the cloaked figure looms towards them again, but before it can come forwards there's a loud pound of hooves on the forest floor and chases it off. The centaur approaches them slowly, and Harry stares up at him in awe, amazed by the sheer size of the man, at the thick muscle packing his form.

"You shouldn't be in the forest," the centaur says. "It is dangerous. Especially for you, Harry Potter." Harry sees Draco open his mouth in his peripheral vision, and Harry claps his spare hand over Draco's mouth to stop the racist trainwreck waiting to happen from leaving the station. This isn't the night for Draco's bigotry.

"We're just leaving," Harry promises. "Er, sorry, uh, sir-"

"My name is Firenze. We know of you, Harry Potter. Dangers will face you this year, and you ought be careful." The centaur looks down at him with his soulful, brown eyes, and Harry feels- Well, if he's entirely honest, he feels a little creeped out. Are centaurs always so intense?

"Right. Firenze. Uh, thanks - could you point us in the direction of Hagrid's hut, please?" Firenze stares down at the two of them, and then he raises his left arm, pointing. Harry mumbles out a quick apology, and he senses the centaur's eyes on them as they stumble in the direction indicated.

He and Draco stumble from the forest, and as soon as he sees them Hagrid runs over, taking Draco from Harry's arm and lifting him as easily as one of the Hogwarts chickens. Draco lets out a cry at the sudden change of position, and Harry cries out at the same time, clutching his head and tripping forwards, into Hermione as Ron exclaims, "Bloody Hell!" The pain only lasts a second more, though, and they all trudge towards the castle.

In the proper light, Harry realizes how much of the unicorn's blood had stained his sleeves, his shoulders, and how much of it had gotten on Hermione as well. Harry had gotten a little of the silvery substance on Draco's chest and back, but more distressing is the red blood Harry can see dripping from the harsh grazes on his hands and from under the fabric of his trousers.

Harry runs ahead, getting up to the castle first and pushing open the Entrance Hall doors for Hagrid to enter, but as he gets inside he slips a little on the ground, falling into his Head of House. "Potter?" Snape asks, staring down at him, and Harry nods his head, leaning back.

"Detention didn't go too well," Harry says, and then, "We need Madam Pomfrey, sir. Draco's hurt." Snape sets his jaw, and Harry watches as he adjusts his sleeves in the same meticulous way he had before facing the troll back in October, and he breathes in. At the very least, Harry thinks, no detention he ever has again can go worse than this one.


	17. Year One: Severus Snape

"What was he like?" Hermione asks, sitting cross-legged on the armchair beside Draco's bed. She's leaning forward, looking at both Draco and Harry with a concentrated, rapt expression, and as much as Draco tries to dislike her on principle, he's far too fond of being the centre of attention to be nasty.

"Oh, he was arrogant," he says huffily, and Harry shakes his head slightly.

"He was weird," Harry says. "Really intense, and he didn't seem to blink much. He said something about terrible things happening to me this year." What the centaur had said sticks with him, and part of Harry wants to go out into the forest and find Firenze, ask for more information, but he doesn't think he should risk it.

"Well, that's not good," Hermione says conversationally, "That implies it's going to get worse for you." Harry nods his sullen agreement, and he shifts his position on the bed slightly, leaning back against the metal footboard of Draco's hospital bed. It was a bad shatter of bone, so Madam Pomfrey had ended up vanishing the bones and giving Draco a shot of something awful called Skele-Gro. Draco's foot had initially looked like a horrible, deflated balloon of skin, but it's slowly starting to fill out again.

Draco is laid back on the bed, reclining on pillows, and even though he won't admit it, he's obviously glad Harry and Hermione have decided to stay with him all day. It's a quiet Saturday, and Theo, Blaise, Pansy and Daphne have all been by, but now it's the afternoon Harry and Hermione are just settling in with him.

Before coming to see him, Hermione and Harry had discussed the figure in the dark, and Harry had said, "I think it was Voldemort," in a slow, very quiet voice. Hermione had stared at him, and then she'd nodded her head.

"Yeah," she agrees. "You can't know, but-"

"Yeah." The idea fills him with a quiet dread, but also- A defiance, almost. Why should he be scared of Voldemort? Why should he have to be? He's supposed to be dead, and all that exists of him is a shadow, a shadow that apparently has to feed on unicorn blood. "It keeps you alive, doesn't it? Unicorn blood? It makes you immortal."

"Not like the stone's elixir does. It keeps you alive, but it's not sustainable. You have to keep drinking it, and-" Hermione had trailed off, then said, "Professor McGonagall says it stops you feeling things, physically, emotionally. You live like a ghost does. You're there, and you're moving about, but you can't feel anything. It's a half-life." That sticks with Harry even now, as he sits beside Draco's leg, looking at the Slytherin.

"Who brought you the sweets?" Draco glances at the jar of pink, powdery sweets, and he grins a little. "Francois," he answers. "Like our great aunt used to make, apparently." Harry stares at Draco in sudden interest.

"He's your cousin?"

"Second cousin," Draco corrects, and Harry nods his head. "We shared a grandmother - my father's mother was his grandfather's sister." Harry thinks about it, and now he considers it, he sees some of the similarities. Francois doesn't have the same haughty attitude Draco does, and obviously with his dark skin and tendency to grin rather than scowl and look dramatic, there are a lot of differences between them, but...

"You've got the same nose," Harry says, realizing it all of a sudden. He'd never noticed before. Draco laughs, and he reaches for the jar, offering one to Harry. The bonbon is powdery and sweet and after Harry takes one, Draco pauses for a moment before offering the jar to Hermione. She smiles at him, and Draco offers a half-smile in response as she takes a sweet. "Do you want to say something, Draco?" Harry prompts, and Draco looks at him quizzically.

"Say something?" he repeats, tilting his head slightly.

"Starts with S, ends with Y? Five letters?" Draco stares at him blankly.

"You need to start doing the crossword in the Prophet," Hermione says after a few seconds of silence.

"Two Rs," Harry continues. "And an O?"

"Sorry?" Draco says. "Oh. Right. Sorry, Granger. For calling you what I called you." He stoppers the jar awkwardly, setting it aside, and Harry chews on the sweet, fragrant thing in his mouth - it's filled with strawberry gel, and it seems to explode in his mouth the longer it stays on his tongue. Harry swallows, and he glances to Hermione, who seems surprised, but not as annoyed as she could be.

"Apology accepted," Hermione says, slightly stiffly. "Though not quite forgiven. You don't know anything about Muggleborns, Malfoy. You don't need to be such a prat." Draco opens his mouth, but then he closes it again, just for a moment or two.

"We just need to educate him as to what the right sort of wizard is," Harry says, and Draco frowns at him, seeming honestly insulted, but Harry isn't going to apologize for that. He's not as bad as he was at the beginning of the year, with Harry or Hermione, but Harry still can't trust the other boy with anything actually important, and he wants to. Draco seems like he could actually be nice, if he thought about what he was doing once in a while. The same could be said of Ron Weasley, really.

"I'm going to head back up to the common room and do some homework," Hermione says, pulling herself and out of the armchair. Draco looks a little disappointed, not for losing Hermione particularly, but probably because he's going to have less company: Draco's social and driven by attention, and Harry's certain that if they weren't there he'd be kicking up a huge fuss for Madam Pomfrey's benefit. "Feel better, okay, Malfoy? Try not to break anything else."

"Do you want to play a game of snap?" Harry asks.

"Yes, sounds good." Draco moves a little to the side of the bed, and Harry pulls the chair closer so they can use half of the bed to play on - the sheets in the hospital wing are fire-resistant, and they don't singe as badly as Draco's and Harry's do. They play quick rounds, and Draco laughs when Harry hisses, drawing his hand back just in time to keep it from being burned.

"Wizards are bloody mad, I hope you realize that," Harry says, flipping over two cards. "Muggle games aren't like this. Nothing sets you on fire, or squirts stuff into your eye, or comes careening towards you at sixty miles an hour while you're flying about, minding your own business."

"What are Muggle sports like?" Draco asks, flipping over three sets of pairs in a row with nimble fingers.

"Well, there's football. Two teams, and there's a football, which is a bit like the quaffle in Quidditch. Each team vies for possession, kicking it around the pitch - you're not allowed to lift it or touch it with your hands - and they try and kick it into the other goal. Then there's tennis, where there's a big, square court and a net across the middle of it. Both players have this thing called a tennis racket, and it's like a wooden Quidditch ring with twine criss-crossed over the hole. They hit a little ball back and forth across the court, making it go over the net each time, and points are scored when the other player can't keep it on the court or hit it back." Draco's aristocratic brow is furrowed in concentration as Harry manages to match two pairs; Harry wonders if Dudley would make a similar expression were Harry to try and explain Quidditch to him.

"Tennis sounds fun," Draco says finally.

"You'd probably like ping-pong more."

"Ping-pong?" Draco repeats, sounding horrified. "What sort of name is that?" Harry laughs, flipping over another set of cards.

"It's also called table tennis. It's the same rules, but you have a little ball about twice the size of a gobstone, and you bounce it over the table, over the net in the same way. It's kinda like the tennis court is made miniature. And instead of rackets you have paddles about the breadth of someone's hand."

"How many sports do Muggles have?"

"Oh, loads, and I'm rubbish at most of them."

"Do-"

"Hello?" Draco and Harry turn, and the happiness that breaks out on his housemate's face is dazzling as he sees his mother in the doorway. She all but runs across the room, leaning and hugging Draco tightly, kissing his face and cupping his cheeks. Harry smiles a little at them, and he glances up to Lucius Malfoy as he walks over, leaning and cupping the back of Draco's head to lay a kiss on the top of it. Narcissa Malfoy is dressed in soft, blue robes, and Lucius' are a deep green. Harry knows from looking at them that they must be expensive - there's all sorts of details to the sleeves, the hems and the collars, and they look complicatedly made.

Narcissa makes her way to the other side of the bed, and Harry puts out his hand to shake, but she pushes it aside and pulls him into a tight hug. Harry goes still, completely surprised as Narcissa hugs him to her chest, and then she leans back, pushing up Harry's chin so she can look at his face. She's very pretty, but up close she doesn't look as severe and nasty as she had in Madam Malkin's back in the summer. She looks very pale, like she's been worried, but if anything she seems kind.

"Thank you, Harry," she says seriously. "You brought him out of the forest, didn't you?"

"It's not like I was going to leave him behind, Mrs Malfoy."

"Some might have," she says seriously, and she hugs him again. Harry leans into it, this time, and he realizes he hasn't really been hugged by an adult since- Well. Not in his memory, ayway, and it's nice, comforting. She draws her hand over his hair, and then moves back to stand with Lucius, leaning against him when he sets his hand on her waist. Together, like this, her, Lucius and Draco look like a picture-perfect family, like they've been made for TV or something. Against his better judgement, Harry laughs.

"What's funny?" Draco asks, and Harry shakes his head.

"Nothing, it's-" he abruptly reconsiders his decision to say "it's a Muggle thing", and instead says, "It's just how different you three look to Frank, that's all." Lucius smiles. He looks really good when he smiles, all white teeth and high cheekbones - Harry hadn't realized how similar Draco looked to him.

"Ah, Francois has been by? Very good," Lucius says approvingly, and he reaches out, drawing his thumb over Draco's face. Harry links the neat, looping handwriting he'd been reading for the past few months to the meticulously kept figure in front of him, and then Lucius says, "It is a pleasure to finally meet you, Harry, though I did not realize your hair was so... Unkempt, in person."

"No amount of conditioners would keep it down, sir," Harry says, and Draco looks between them.

"It's weird that you two know each other. It's like you're some sort of incredibly short, ugly uncle," Draco says, and Harry throws a card at him, forcing Draco to catch it with surprisingly quick reflexes.

"Oi!" Harry says, and Draco laughs, tipping back his head as he does so. "I'll leave you guys to catch up, then. You're lucky you came this afternoon, Mr and Mrs Malfoy. He was crying all this morning-"

"I wasn't!"

"Begging for pain relief, and for Madam Pomfrey to just put him out of his misery-"

"Shut up!" Draco's white cheeks are tingeing pink, and Harry grins at him. His parents have weird smiles on their faces, as if they've never seen someone Draco's own the age take the mick out of him - but then again, maybe they haven't. Draco's so upper class that children probably weren't allowed to play outside in case they got muddy when he was younger.

"Good evening, Harry," Lucius says, nodding his head, and Narcissa gives him a surprisingly friendly wave. Harry's seen pictures of the two of them in the Daily Prophet, mostly of Lucius, and they'd almost never smiled. He's seen a picture of two of Lucius smirking, but he's never actually seen them giving genuine smiles like that, and Narcissa definitely hadn't smiled when he'd seen her in Madam Malkin's.

It's almost unsettling.

"Are you returning to the common room, Mr Potter?" Harry glances up from his own thoughts, and he meets Snape's eyes.

"Uh, yeah, sir. Did you want me to take anything down?" Snape is holding a stack of folders, and he looks dourly at Harry, as if appraising his ability to perform tasks such as "sit" and "lie down", before deciding he's capable of taking one of the folders in his pile.

"This is Ms Lanjwani's essay," Snape says, handing a blue folder to Harry, and he takes it, carefully stowing it into his bag. "You will give it to her upon your arrival?"

"Yes, sir, sure. Uh, Draco's parents are here."

"Lucius mentioned he would make an appearance," Snape says dryly, and Harry stares at him for a second, utterly taken aback. Snape peers down at him.

"What is it, Potter?"

"You called him Lucius," Harry says, light dawning.

"What would you suggest I call him? Anita?" Snape's sarcasm is thick and drips from his every word, infused with the utter loathing he has for Harry, but Harry can't even care. Snape. A person. Friends with Lucius Malfoy.

"You're friends," Harry says. "God." Snape arches an eyebrow. "Sorry, sir. I just sort of, uh- Forgot you were a person." Snape looks like he wants to pinch the bridge of his nose, but with the folders leaning against his chest, he doesn't have the spare hand.

"When you give Ms Lanjwani her essay, Potter, I suggest you not bore her with your inane babble."

"I'll try not to, sir. Does he call you Severus? Does he call you Sev?" Harry doesn't know why he's asking so many questions - the idea of the man he's had writing letters to him about government policy and the Ministry of Magic and Draco being friends with Severus Snape is blowing his mind. This is even better than thinking of Snape having Christmas dinner with his family - what do they do? Go out for coffee together? Go to Quidditch matches? Have dinners with Narcissa, Lucius, Snape and a woman Lucius is trying to get Snape to go out with?

Potter, given your recent foray into potential death, would you like another detention?"

"I'll go give her the essay now, sir," Harry says, and he walks off down the corridor before Snape can deliver on his threat or take any points off him. He makes his way down to the common room, and Afifa thanks him for her essay. Harry glances at the clock. Dinner is in a half hour, but he has time to go up to the library and take out a book on grotesque transmogrication for his Transfiguration essay. He walks quickly back up through the halls, taking one of the shortcuts Fred and George showed him up to the second floor, but just before he exits from the stationery cupboard he's arrived in, he stops short.

The cupboard is in an empty classroom, but it's not empty right now - he can hear arguing, and he pushes the cupboard door open just slightly. Professor Quirrell is leaned right back against a wall, looking for all the world like he's trying to melt into it, and Harry's mouth drops open as he sees who's intimidating him into the position. The absent smile drops from his face, and his good mood vanishes.

"Well then," Snape says, "You've no doubt discovered the secret to Cerberus, but what of the other protections? Have you thought of a strategy around them?"

"P-p-please, Severus, I have no i-i-idea what you're-"

"Come now, Quirrell," Snape hisses, "What protection have you devised?" Harry slides to the floor, making himself as small and quiet as possible in the bottom of the cupboard, and listens to their conversation with a sickening feeling that weighs heavy in his chest.

Voldemort wants the stone, and Snape is trying to get it.

The realization hits Harry like a Bludger, and even after Quirrell scurries from the room and Snape stalks down the corridor the other way, he doesn't move. He can't move. His own Head of House is going to try the Philosopher's Stone, and there's nothing he can do about it.


	18. Year One: The Philosopher's Stone

It's the first night for weeks that Harry isn't made sleepy by a potion or the sheer exhaustion of a few events, so that night when Harry lies down in the Slytherin dormitory, the curtains drawn all around his bed, he tosses and he turns, unable to get peaceful enough to sleep. All he can think about is Snape demanding answers from Quirrell, demanding the way to the Stone.

Was it Snape that broke into Gringotts back in September, and tried to steal the grubby little package the Stone had come in? How could Hagrid have taken a dragon egg from him, and never realized who it was? Was Snape harbouring Voldemort, the cloaked spectre that made Harry's scar hurt so badly?

It doesn't make any sense, Harry thinks as he exhaustedly lies on his belly, face pressed hard into the thick, downy pillows of his bed. Snape is nasty, ill-tempered and occasionally even cruel, but why would he do this? Would he really have done this? Harry can't sleep, can't just settle down and think of nothing. He crawls to the edge of the bed, slipping out and pulling on the snake-emblazoned dressing gown, slipping his feet into his boots and tying them up. He puts on his glasses and puts his wand in the pocket of his pyjamas before he stands.

Draco is fast asleep, sprawled out atop his bedcovers with his normally combed-down hair a silver mess, his mouth slightly open, his body splayed out as if in his sleep he's trying to reach all four corners of the bed. Harry hovers a little as he looks down at the other boy, amused at the sight of his upright, aristocratic classmate so deeply asleep, and then he turns, quietly making his way down the corridor and into the common room.

A glance at the clock over the mantel tells him it's nearing 3 o'clock in the morning, and the common room is utterly devoid of anyone, so Harry isn't stopped as he exits. The coolness of the dungeons doesn't bite at his skin as it sometimes does. In fact, compared to the warmth of his dorm and the common room, the chilliness is welcoming, refreshing, and Harry walks through the dark corridors of the dungeons.

Torches line the stone walls, but in the night-time they're dimmed right down, offering only the barest hint of light as he walks down the dismal halls. He doesn't really have a destination in mind: he just wants to walk, walk until he stops thinking. He doesn't want to think about anything at all.

He knows that even if you can't sleep, you're not supposed to leave the common room, but he doesn't want to sit still, and in the middle of the night, it's far too late to explore the rooms in the Slytherin quarters. He doesn't even really want to explore. Harry just wants to be moving.

He's barely aware of where his feet take him as his footsteps whisper over the stone floors, making quiet clicks that echo the tiniest bit. On the groundfloor and up, a lot of the corridors are lined with rugs, but here in the dungeons they become inexplicably damp, no matter how many charms are cast on them. Afifa had confided that she expected this was an intentional design choice on the part of Salazar Slytherin, and Harry had found the idea funny at the time.

Now, with the satisfying feeling of his boots on the floor, the only noise to be heard in the whole of the Hogwarts dungeons, Harry understands it. He feels like he's the only person in the castle, the only person in the world, with no portraits or decorations lining the dungeon walls, they feel empty and endless, and for some reason that's not scary at all. If anything, it's comforting: it's like the comforting darkness of his cupboard back at the Dursleys, almost, full of spiders and dust, but not actually unpleasant.

He stops when he reaches the door to Snape's office, adjoining the Potions classroom, and he reaches for the door, turning the handle and pushing the door open without crossing the threshold. The candles in here aren't as dim as the torches are out in the common room, and on the desk bubbles a quiet cauldron. Harry had pushed the door open on a whim, wanting to see if it was locked or not, but now he steps cautiously inside, leaning towards Snape's desk.

The cauldron isn't pewter, like the ones they use for classes: it's silver, and standard size 3, according to the little plate on one of its legs. Harry breathes in, but the potion only smells a bit spicy to him - some of the seventh years can guess some potions ingredients just from their smell, but Harry doesn't recognize the smell at all. The liquid is a soft blue and so clear Harry can see the bottom of the cauldron in its entirety, and it bubbles lowly over its heat, letting off a steam the colour of lilacs.

"Out of bed again, Potter?" Harry stumbles back in surprise, looking up at Snape. He hadn't heard the door behind the desk open and shut, and now Snape stands there, staring down at Harry with an inscrutable expression on his face.

"Sorry," Harry whispers, too suddenly terrified to say anything else, and Snape frowns at him, his brow furrowing. "I'll go-"

"Sit down, Potter," Snape orders, and Harry freezes, mid-step towards the door. He teeters, unsure whether to sit down or just try to run back to the common room, but even though Harry knows the dungeons quite well, he knows it would be stupid to try and run from a teacher, even if said teacher is trying to steal the Philosopher's Stone. Harry sits. The singular chair in front of Snape's desk is made of wood, and there's no cushioning or arms on it. It's not there for someone to be comfortable in.

Harry sits in silence, and he watches as Snape takes a glass stirring rod, carefully moving it clockwise through the potion in a slow, rhythmic fashion. Slowly, the lilac steam begins to darken, turning indigo, and then to such a dark purple it's almost black. Harry watches in silence as Snape carefully extinguishes the heat beneath the cauldron, and then begins to bottle the liquid within: it's now almost entirely clear.

"Do you know what this potion is, Potter?" Snape asks, and Harry desperately thinks of his textbooks, of the potions section in An Introduction To The Wizarding World, of the stupid trivia game Theodore Nott had tricked them all into playing last month. Would Snape kill him, Harry wonders? If he's truly on Voldemort's side, and is trying to get the Stone for him, would he kill Harry? But if that was the case, why wouldn't he have just let Harry die back at the Quidditch game in the autumn?

It could always just be a coincidence, and both Voldemort and Snape are after the Stone, but the idea strikes him as unlikely.

"Veritaserum, sir?" Harry asks. Snape arches an eyebrow, seeming what might pass as impressed on someone else's face.

"No, Potter, but they're not dissimilar in their appearance. Veritaserum is odourless: this potion is not."

"Oh," Harry says. "What is it, then?" Despite himself, he wants to know - what sort of potion could Snape be brewing at three in the morning, in the dark, on his own?

"It's a form of Auxilian Elixir," Snape says. "For abdominal pains."

"Pain relief," Harry says, peering at it. "Is it for girls on their periods?" Snape stares down at him, and Harry wonders for a second if he's said something wrong, and amends, "Uh, girls who are menstruating?" Snape looks, for the barest hint of a second, like he's about to laugh, but the look is gone as soon as it appears.

"Very astute of you, Potter," Snape says dryly. "It is indeed." He pours the contents of the cauldron into four more little vials, and there are five small bottles lined up on his desk by the time he flicks his wand at the cauldron and sends it across the room to settle itself in the sink. "Why are you out of bed, Potter?"

"Couldn't sleep," Harry admits. "Why are you?"

"Because I am an adult, and am permitted to go wherever I choose. You, Potter, are supposedly restricted to the Slytherin quarters after nine PM, and yet you seem to believe the Hogwarts halls are your domain to be explored at leisure. Is there no end to your arrogance?"

"I didn't want to wake anyone up," Harry says.

"Of course you didn't," Snape says, not sounding at all like he believes him. "Your insomnia has returned, then?"

"No," Harry says quickly, "I don't think I need more of that potion or anything." Snape stares down at him, and Harry thinks that his eyes are endless - not in the comforting way the dungeon corridors are, but in a way that scares him, terrifies him, on a primal level. "Are you- I mean, like- are-"

"What are you babbling about, Potter?"

"I saw you. And Quirrell. In that classroom on the third floor." Snape stares down at him, silent. "You're going to steal it, aren't you?" To Harry's complete surprise, Snape laughs. The sound is short, harsh and completely surprising - it doesn't sound anything like a normal person's laugh, as if Snape doesn't laugh very often at all, and Harry feels like he doesn't.

"Steal what, Potter?" Snape prompts.

"The Philosopher's Stone."

"And where is the Philosopher's Stone?" Snape asks, narrowing his eyes slightly.

"Here. In Hogwarts. You tried to steal it from Gringotts, but Hagrid had withdrawn it first, from Vault 713, and now you- you're going to steal it. And become immortal." Snape's lips are twisted into an unpleasant parody of a smile, and he leans back against his desk, crossing his arms over his chest. Snape's numerously buttoned outer robe is open, Harry realizes now, leaving the white under robe entirely on show. It's strange, seeing Snape wear white somewhere other than slightly below his neck.

"How long have you known about the Philosopher's Stone, Potter?" Snape asks. Harry stares up at him, but now he's revealed this much, and he knows he can't run, he can't say nothing.

"Since January." Snape laughs again, showing off his uneven, slightly yellowed teeth, and Harry wonders if he's a smoker. The Dursleys had always despised smoking: Uncle Vernon decreed it a sign of weakness, and Aunt Petunia had said once, wrinkling up her nose, that it stained things. Snape never smells of cigarette smoke, but it would be hard to tell, given that he always seems to smell of different potions.

"No, Potter," Snape says finally. "I am not going to steal, pilfer, or otherwise remove the Philosopher's Stone from its current whereabouts."

"But you were yelling at Quirrell."

"I was."

"You were asking about his protections on the Stone."

"I was." Snape answers casually, as if it's not suspicious at all, and Harry is left dumbstruck, mouth slightly open, mind blank. What is he supposed to say? How can Snape tell him he's not after the Stone after what Harry saw?

"You don't want the Stone?" he asks.

"Mr Potter, do you truly believe I wish for eternal life, or insurmountable riches?" Harry stares at him, then glances at the meagre accoutrements of Snape's office. Flitwick's office has little photographs on the walls, and all sorts of charmed figurines and toys and brightly bound books; McGonagall's is less bright, but has a Gryffindor scarf hung proudly on its wall, and a few ornaments here and there. Snape's office, by comparison, isn't dissimilar to an especially large potions store cupboard with a desk in it.

"No," Harry admits, a bit meekly.

"Then for what purpose, I wonder, do you believe I would wish for the Philosopher's Stone to enter my possession?" Snape is watching him intently, scanning every flicker of Harry's face.

"Voldemort isn't dead, is he?" Harry asks quietly, and Snape's expression doesn't change at all. "If he could get the Philosopher's Stone, he'd be able to come back. Be more than what he is now. Have a body again, be a real threat again. He'd try to kill me, wouldn't he?" There's a very long pause. The only sound in the room is Harry's breaths entering and exiting his lungs - Snape's breathing seems to be almost silent.

"You should return to bed, Potter," Snape says finally. Harry doesn't feel all that surprised that Snape didn't say anything about Voldemort, but a disappointment settles in his chest. "You need to sleep." Harry stares at his own feet, and at Snape's shoes. "I will accompany you to the Slytherin common room."

"You're really not going to try to steal it?" Harry asks again as he follows Snape towards the door of his office, stepping out into the corridor. As they move, the torches brighten up slightly for Snape, lighting their way.

"Are you?" Harry stares up at him, his gait quicker than usual in order to keep up with his Head of House's long strides.

"What?"

"It's a simple question, Potter. You are aware of the Philosopher's Stone, its location. Do you plan to steal it?"

"No!" Harry says, affronted. "Of course not!"

"Nor am I," Snape says. Harry is so irritated he doesn't even know what to say. Is he supposed to believe Snape? He hadn't given any reason for quizzing Quirrell, but Harry had believed him when he'd said he didn't want it. They walk in silence, and Snape murmurs the password for the common room entrance, ushering Harry inside. Harry glances back to him as the door slips shut, and Harry creeps back into his room, dropping hard onto his mattress with his boots and his dressing gown still on.

He's asleep as soon as he pulls the pillow under his head.

* * *

Harry doesn't mention his conversation with Snape to Hermione the next day or even how he'd seen Snape and Quirrell arguing when they walk together down to Hagrid's. It's not that he doesn't think she'll believe him, or that he doesn't trust her with it: he just knows she'll ask a lot of questions, and Harry has so many questions running around his own head at the moment he doesn't want to add Hermione's to the swirl as well.

They don't stay with Hagrid for all too long. Hagrid had had a letter from Charlie about Norbert, and he showed it to the both of them, letting them read through Charlie's gushing account of the dragon's growth. His handwriting's like his mother's, Harry thinks, but he supposes it was Mrs Weasley that taught her children to read and write.

The next few weeks go on in a blur - they revise for their coming exams, and then the exams are suddenly starting, and Harry's days are warm, hazy afternoons hunched over his desk in the Great Hall, writing essay after essay on what seems like a thousand things he can't possibly have learned in a single year.

But then the exams are over, and they all step out into the sun. "We have to do this next year, you know," Blaise says, and the relieved smile drops from Harry's face.

"Why did you have to say that?" he asks, wounded, and Blaise shrugs his shoulders, looking amused. Harry shakes his head, and he looks out across the grounds - there are students dotted all over the green grass, up the hill, and it seems like almost everyone is outside, enjoying the summer sunshine. There are only a few more exams for the older students to do, and those are NEWTs.

Harry makes his way leisurely inside, walking down to the Potions classroom to ask Snape who he should talk to about going somewhere other than the Dursleys' for the summer, but Snape's nowhere to be seen, and not in his office either. Frowning, Harry heads up to the third floor through the secret passage in the dungeons, and he glances into the DADA office, just to check.

Quirrell isn't in his office, either, and neither of them are invigilating exams or anywhere in the Entrance Hall or out on the grounds. They should be in their offices, or in their classrooms, packing up.

"Harry!" Hermione calls from a staircase below as Harry comes out into the Hall of Staircases, and she and Draco stand together.

"He's gone for the Stone!" Harry calls down, and Hermione's expression goes from curious and friendly to alarmed.

"What stone?" Draco asks, and Hermione ignores him, running with Harry as he comes bulleting down the stairs and down towards the Entrance Hall, Draco in hot pursuit on their heels.

"Professor McGonagall," Harry asks sharply, "Where's Dumbledore?" She stares down at him, nostrils flaring in fury at Harry's demanding tone and rude interruption, but for the time being Harry can't really care about what she thinks of him.

"Professor Dumbledore, Mr Potter, is away on business at the Ministry." Hermione and Harry share a look, and then they run off in the other direction, ignoring McGonagall yelling at them as they go. Harry doesn't even realize Draco is following them until he reaches the third floor and unlocks the door to the west corridor.

"Harry? What are you doing? What-"

"Draco, go downstairs," Harry says, and he and Hermione run into the door. In the corner, there's a harp playing soft folk music, and Fluffy is fast asleep, each of his three heads settled on the floor. They pull up the trap door, and Harry and Hermione stare down into the darkness.

"He told me- he told me he didn't want it," Harry whispers.

"What?" Hermione demands, and Harry just shakes his head. He can't do anything else - he jumps.


	19. Year One: Facing Death

"Harry?" Hermione asks.

"It's fine!" he calls back. "I landed on something soft. Go, go tell McGonagall he's after the Stone, and I'll go on." There's a whoosh of air and a soft thump as Hermione lands next to him. "What the Hell, Hermione?"

"Oh, you idiot, I'm not letting you go alone," Hermione hisses. "Malfoy, you need to go to Professor McGonagall! Tell her that Snape is going after the Stone, and that we're going after him!"

"What stone?"

"Just go and tell her!" he yells. There's a third whoosh and another thump. For a few moments, in the darkness, there is silence. "Hi, Draco," Harry says sarcastically.

"Hi," Draco says, having the decency to at least sound embarrassed. Harry pulls his box of matches out of his robes and flicks the red head over the side of the box, holding the tiny flame aloft to look around. They're on a bed of thick, green vines, and Harry's so surprised at the shift of one of them under his leg that he throws the match away. It alights on a tiny leaf, burning through it, and then the flame goes out, leaving them in darkness again.

"It's Devil's Snare," Harry hisses.

"Yeah, I can see that!" Hermione whispers back, sounding like she wants to hit him.

"Incendio," Draco hisses, and the flames flicker greedily over the thick vine, forcing it back, but the plant is too thick to burn properly, and he swears as the flame goes out. "So, we're all going to die by Devil's Snare because Professor Snape is searching for some mystery rock?"

"It's not a mystery rock- Look, we'll explain in a minute. Lumos," Hermione's wand bursts out with light, and the Devil's Snare retracts some. "Lumos maxima."

* * *

It's with messy hair and a slightly dirty face that Harry stumbles into the third room, wiping his cheek with his sleeve. He'd hit the floor hard when they'd fallen from the Devil's Snare, and the ground had been grimy with soil and mould, but it's mostly off his face now. Explaining their being here to Draco had been a rushed affair, but now Draco has come this far with them, he's completely unwilling to leave.

"What's this?" Draco demands as they enter the room, and the three of them stare across the chessboard. Each of the chess pieces is the size of a grown man, and Harry steps across the room, towards the door, but when he reaches the other side the black pawns block his way. "What are we supposed to do?"

"We have to play," Harry says. "To get across."

"Can you play chess?" Hermione asks. Her eyes are flickering wildly from piece to piece, but what can Harry say?

"Well," Harry says awkwardly. "I know the rules, but- I'm not any good. Draco?" The other Slytherin shakes his head.

"Father and I played when I was younger, but I've never been as good as he is, or good at all. Granger?"

"I'm not even that certain of all the pieces' moves," Hermione admits. "So I don't think playing across is an option." Harry is about to open his mouth to ask what other option there is, and Hermione holds up her wand to the pawn closest to them and says, "Bombarda." Harry and Draco duck their heads as the pawn's head explodes in a dusty burst of black stone, and then Hermione does it again, and again, aiming at different heads.

"What's the spell?" Harry demands. "Bombarda?"

"Straight wand movement," Hermione agrees. "It's a really simple spell, but it's draining. It takes power."

"Okay," Harry says softly, nodding his head. "Bombarda!" The pieces don't move except to shatter outwards in dramatic showers of marble and rock, and they only destroy six figures before they step through the pieces and towards the door.

* * *

By the time Draco and Hermione figure out the riddle, the both of them look drained. Draco is even paler than usual, and Hermione's eyes keep defocusing slightly, as if she's about to faint. Harry looks between the both of them carefully as Hermione points out the tiny bottle that will get him through the flames.

"You two need to go back," Harry says. "You need to get help. I can just distract him, stop him from getting away."

"Is this worth dying over, Potter?" Draco asks, and the question hits Harry like a punch to the chest.

"What?"

"The Philosopher's Stone, the way she described it," he gestures to Hermione, "It's worth killing someone over. Professor Snape, if he wants it, it would be worth killing you over." Harry stares at the bottle as he takes it from the line-up.

"Go back, guys."

"Harry-"

"Go get McGonagall," Harry says firmly, and he swallows the potion, pushing himself forwards and through the flames.

* * *

Harry ducks down as soon as he begins to move into the room, making himself less visible. The room is high-ceilinged and round, and in the centre, on a raised dais, he can see a figure barely illuminated by the bare light coming fom the torches to the edges of the room. The figure is muttering, Harry can hear, and he creeps closer.

Before the Mirror of Erised, hands clasped in front of him as he mutters to himself, is Professor Quirrell, and suddenly Snape's stupid, evasive answers from a few weeks ago make sense. God, Harry hates the man right now. Harry looks around, searching for him, and he sees a crumpled figure to the edge of the room, limp and still. Snape lies on his back, and Harry stumbles towards him, trying to see if he's breathing.

There's a wound on the top of his head, and blood seeps thickly into the professor's lank, greasy hair, making it look even wetter and darker in the dim light, but before Harry can reach out and put his hand to the man's neck, see if he's breathing, he hears Quirrell move suddenly behind him.

"Potter!" Quirrell says, and Harry turns to look at him. "Stand up," Quirrell orders, every trace of his stutter, nervous shakes and anxiety completely absent.

"Don't suppose you'd believe I got lost?" Harry offers, and Quirrell raises his wand, but then another voice speaks. It's not Quirrell's - it's too deep and too raspy to be his, disembodied and imbued with a magic that makes it echo unnaturally throughout the room.

"Let him try. Put him before the mirror."

"Who's that?" Harry demands, but he steps forwards all the same, walking towards the Mirror of Erised. His heart pangs to look up at the familiar glass and its gold gilding. Quirrell doesn't answer him. Harry hadn't expected him to. He shifts on the dais, leaning forwards to look into the mirror, but his parents, his family, are nowhere to be seen. In the picture is just Harry on his own, dirt on his face, tie askew, robes dirty and scuffed and ripped in places from where keys had bitten into them as he and Draco had tried to grab the right one.

Harry stares into the glass, frowning at himself - his desires can't have changed, can't be different, can they? The mirror Harry shifts, winks at him, and holds a glittering red stone aloft. Then, he puts it in his pocket, and Harry feels the sudden new weight in his own.

God, Harry can't help but think. Magic is stupid sometimes.

"What do you see, boy?" Quirrell asks.

"My uncle calls me boy," Harry says conversationally, "I never did like it much."

"What do you see?" Harry stares into the mirror, looking at Snape in the reflection behind him, unmoving. Like this, dusty and with his robes around him, it reminds Harry of a dead bat. The comparison doesn't make him feel any better about the sitatuon.

"Well, it's a big mirror. It's quite nice, I guess. It wouldn't really go with the décor in my bedroom, but I suppose it would suit a Gryffindor." Quirrell lets out a loud noise of frustration, stamping forward, but then comes that disembodied voice again.

"He's playing with you," it says. "Don't let him." Quirrell comes forwards, holding his wand up and squeezing its handle tightly.

"Potter," he whispers, "I know spells that will flay the skin from your bones. Look into the mirror and tell me what you see." Harry turns, staring at the glass, and he lets his face slacken.

"I see-" he breathes in, slowly. "I see my parents. They're standing either side of me, my mum, and my dad. My dad, he looks like me, or, um, I look like him, I guess. He's got the same glasses, the same messy hair. And I- in the Mirror I'm, um, I'm raising my wand-" Harry glances back to Quirrell, uncertainly, but the defence professor just hurriedly nods his head and reaches into robes, pulling out his wand. "I'm- I'm raising it slowly, and I don't know the spell - I can see it on my lips, though... Bombarda!" Harry whirls, but the red pulse of light misses Quirrell by inches and flies at speed across the room, hitting the wall with a harsh boom of sound and sending stone and white dust showering from the brick.

Harry gasps, surprised by the way sensation rips down his arm. He hadn't yelled the spell back in the other room, hadn't thrown his wand forwards with such force, and he feels something like electricity wrench through his body, forcing him to crumble to the ground.

"Idiot boy," Quirrell hisses, snatching Harry's wand from him as he breathes heavily on all fours, coughing. His right arm is tingling, as if it's covered in pins and needles, and Harry's vision blurs for a second or two. In An Introduction To The Wizarding World, there'd been a passage on magic used by children. Wizards didn't have different levels of power, but there were different limits to which wizards could hold themselves to in terms of how much magic they allowed to travel through them, and the reason spellwork is taught from age eleven onwards is because too much magic in a young body can damage it, leave it stunted. Growing, using magic, lets you withstand more power at a time, use more magic and different sorts of magic.

Judging by the current pain rebounding from the tips of his fingers to his chest, Harry had just found his limit and jumped merrily over it with a spell he'd learned twenty minutes ago. And not only that, he'd missed his target.

"Silly Potter," says the disembodied voice as Harry crawls weakly forwards, trying to ignore the sheer weight of his own body. He wants to just crumple to the floor, close his eyes and let himself sleep, but he can't let his sudden exhaustion overtake him. "You're too young to wield such power, too small." Harry thinks of how pale Draco had been, and how uncertain Hermione had looked on her feet a few minutes ago.

But they'll have gotten back just fine. He has to think that. McGonagall is probably on her way, and Draco and Hermione are probably already in the hospital wing, and Snape isn't going to die tonight, because McGonagall's going to get here in time.

Harry crawls slowly towards him, feeling his body get heavier and heavier, feeling the tingling turn to pain as he shifts forwards. He feels the weight of the stone in his pocket as he reaches Snape, touching the gaunt face of the man with one of his dirty, dusty hands. Snape's skin is cold, but it's moving a little, and Harry glances back to Quirrell. The other man is focused on the mirror, his wand out as he murmurs spells, and Harry pulls the Stone from his pocket.

Scraping it against a piece of rubble that had been thrown forwards by his botched spell, Harry catches the tiny, ruby-red shards of the Stone that shake off of it. Reaching forwards, he presses his fingers into the worst of the blood at the top of Snape's head. Snape's hair isn't quite as greasy as it looks, but the wet, gooey thickness of the congealing blood under Harry's fingers makes him want to vomit as he presses the red dust into where he hopes the wound on Snape's head is.

Harry doesn't know if it'll work. He just has to hope it does - short of shoving the entire Stone into Snape's mouth like a bezoar, he doesn't know what else to do. He doesn't know if he's imagining it when the blood stops feeling as hot against his fingers, and he doesn't know if his exhausted, aching eyes are playing tricks on him when Snape's chest seems to rise and fall a little faster.

"What is he doing?" hisses the voice. "He's got the Stone, you fool!" Harry's head whips around as Quirrell lunges towards him, and Harry waits as Quirrell gets closer to him, lets him get closer, and closer, and just as Quirrell is an inch from touching him Harry throws the Stone as hard as he can across the room. At the same time, just as the professor turns his head to watch the Stone's path, Harry brings the rock he'd used to scrape off a little of the Stone hard against the side of his head.

It barely makes a difference. There's no strength in Harry's arms, no resolve in his movement - if anything, he comes uncomfortably close to Quirrell's eye with the movement. Quirrell grabs him by the wrist, and Harry cries out loudly, dropping his makeshift weapon.

But Quirrell cries louder. Harry grabs desperately at him as he tries to pull away, needing to stop him from getting to the Stone, and he drags hard at the purple fabric of the man's turban, leaving it to fall in a long ribbon around Quirrell's head: as Harry grabs him, grasps at his head and neck and arms, Quirrell's flesh seems to blister and burn under Harry's hands, and Quirrell is screaming with pain as he falls. Harry stands over him, staring at his own hands, messy with grime and Snape's blood and brickdust, and then he looks at Quirrell.

Quirrell is writhing in pain on the floor, face pressed into the ground, but another face stares out at Harry from the back of Quirrell's head.

"Voldemort," Harry says, and he throws himself forwards as the disembodied voice screams for Quirrell to get him, kill him - Harry presses his palm hard to the cheek of the monster buried in the back of Quirrell's skull, and Quirrell is screaming, burning, crumbling under Harry's fingers.

Harry's vision begins to blur at the edges as he drops aside, and he feels like his hands should be hot, burned, but they're not, they're just fine.

"Potter," he hears someone say.

"Oh, good," Harry says, not knowing whether his mouth is moving or whether the words are only being said inside his own mind. "You're alive." He's aware of movement next to him, aware that Snape is talking, but he can't hear it, can't see anything. All he can see, all he can hear, all he can feel, is a thick, fuzzy agony that draws slowly over him and drops him, bit by bit, into unconsciousness.


	20. Year One: Endings And Beginnings

Everything hurts when Harry wakes up. He lets out a sharp little sound of pain, shifting himself in bed, and a mercifully cool hand touches the hot, clammy skin of his forehead. "Give me a moment, Potter, I'll give you something for the pain," Madam Pomfrey's voice says quietly, missing its usual brisk tone, and she holds an unstoppered vial to his mouth. Harry inhales, nose filled with the familiar scent.

"Auxilian Elixir," Harry croaks out, and he drinks the contents of the little bottle. The effect is almost immediate: Harry feels cool, tingling pressure run all over his skin, soothing the pain it runs over, and he drops back against his pillow, staring up at the blurry ceiling.

"You've been comatose for two days, Mr Potter," Madam Pomfrey says quietly, and as Harry carefully leans up against the headboard, she hands him his glasses. He puts them on, looking up at her concerned face, her lips pursed as she analyses Harry's face, obviously looking for anything she needs to immediately treat. "What spell did you use?"

"Spell?" Harry asks, feeling the dry crack in his voice and reaching with a slightly shaky hand for the glass of water next to his bed, drinking from it greedily to help his parched throat.

"You burned veins in your right arm, Potter," Madam Pomfrey says seriously, looking down at him with a frown on her face. "Magical exertion." Harry stares at his right arm, which seems completely fine. Magical exertion, he'd have thought, would have left something cool - maybe lightning style swatches of scarring all up the skin. "The damage was on the inside, under the skin. I've fixed it as best I can, but it's best you not cast any spells for the rest of the week."

"Bombarda," Harry answers. "Hermione taught it to us like a half hour before - I didn't know any other spells that could stop him."

"Not as bad as it could have been," she says, nodding her head. "Professor Dumbledore will come in to speak with you now. You feel up to it?"

"Yes, Ma'am," Harry says, "I'll send you some flowers." She laughs, putting her hand over her own chest for a moment, and she seems honestly amused at the comment - it's nice to see Madam Pomfrey laugh.

"You have enough of your own, I should think," she says briskly, and she walks off with a smile still on her face. Harry furrows his brow slightly at the comment, but then he turns his head, staring at the collections of sweets beside his bed, as well as big, bright daisies in a vase. Harry smiles, reaching out and brushing his thumb over one of their thick, white petals.

"I believe Mr Zabini collected those for you, Mr Potter," Dumbledore says in a light and friendly tone and he slowly steps into the room. He's wearing deep, blue robes today, but his long beard remains tucked neatly under the purple belt that keeps them cinched at his waist. In a parallel universe, Harry expects the old man is actually quite fashionable.

"They grow at the edge of the forest," Harry says. "He knows how to make poison out of the stems, apparently, but I'm glad he just put them in a vase." Dumbledore gives a low chuckle, slowly lowering himself into a chair at the side of Harry's bed, and Harry draws his hand away from the vase.

"You have numerous letters awaiting your attention, of course," Dumbledore says, and he indicates a neatly made wooden box on the floor beside Harry's bed, filled with neatly folded sheets of paper, twine-tied scrolls and coloured envelopes. "You have achieved astounding popularity for such a young man."

"Hermione keeps saying my hair adds to my charisma," Harry replies, not really able to think of anything serious to say, and Dumbledore smiles at him, his ancient face showing all sorts of new wrinkles as his lips move. "Is Professor Snape okay?"

"He is just fine. Young Ms Granger and Mr Malfoy are quite well too - they were mildly over-exerted, but they didn't sustain similar damage to yourself. Professor Snape's head wound was quite healed by the Stone's powder - an inspired idea, Mr Potter, under the circumstances." Harry remembers the thick, hot feel of Snape's thickening blood under his fingers as he rubbed in the powder, and he suppresses the urge to retch.

"He's not going to live forever or anything, is he?" he asks. "It just healed him?"

"The flesh was knitted together by the restorative properties of the Stone, but he did not drink the Elixir of Life. He will lead his life as he would have done," Professor Dumbledore answers delicately, and Harry lets out a small sigh of relief. "Ms Granger has informed me that the three of you were intent on preventing he get the Stone."

"Snape told me he didn't want it," Harry says, feeling stupid. "I should have realized- I should have figured out it was Quirrell that was after it, that Voldemort and Quirrell-" Harry remembers the sick carving of Voldemort's face into the back of Quirrell's skull, moving its lips and its face as if it belonged there. "I should have figured it out." Dumbledore is watching him, his blue eyes twinkling in the same way they always seem to. Harry wishes he could figure out what the old man was thinking. "But the Stone is safe, and Quirrell- he's dead, isn't he? I killed him?" Dumbledore's eyes widen, and he seems surprised for a moment.

"With the presence of Lord Voldemort sharing his body, Mr Potter," Dumbledore says, "The tax on his body would soon have killed him anyway. He would soon have died. You did not kill him." The words are said to comfort him, but Harry doesn't really feel comforted at all: there is no guilt for the words to soothe. He'd had to stop Quirrell from getting the Stone, had to stop Voldemort, and Harry doesn't feel guilty at all for what he did.

"I burned him," Harry says. "With just my hands. I've never done that before, and it didn't feel like accidental magic. What was that?"

"When your mother stood before your crib and shielded you from Lord Voldemort, Harry, I believe you were left protected by it. Voldemort cannot possibly touch you, for you are protected still by your mother's love." Harry thinks of the woman in the photographs beside his head, the beautiful, smiling girl, not even twenty five, with burnished red hair and such big, green eyes. He feels his eyes begin to water, and he drags his sleeve irritably over them.

"He's not finished, is he?" Harry asks, furious at how suddenly thick his own voice sounds. He's not going to cry. "He didn't die, I felt him- I felt him go through my fingers, like a ghost. He's not dead, not really."

"Lord Voldemort will no doubt do his best to return," Dumbledore says, and Harry nods his head, setting his jaw. Slytherin House, Harry thinks, is all about ambition, and Harry's ambitions haven't really been all that concrete until now, but he wants to kill Voldemort. That's an ambition in itself - he'll wipe the monster out. "Madam Pomfrey tells me you will be able to leave your bed for the feast tomorrow evening. I shall see you then, Mr Potter."

"Sure, sir," Harry says, staring at his bedsheets. "I'll see you."

* * *

Harry walks a little slowly as he stands from the Great Hall's table, and he smiles weakly at Hermione as she comes over to him. Draco had regaled everyone at the Slytherin table with everything that had happened, again and again, to stop Quirrell from stealing the Stone, and so tired of the story were the Slytherin students that barely any of them had bothered to quiz Harry himself.

"You look terrible," Hermione says honestly, and Harry laughs, shifting his body and feeling his limbs stiffly and slowly agree to move.

"Madam Pomfrey said I'll be like this for a little while. Apparently magical exertion can be quite serious. Who knew?"

"Literally everyone," Hermione tells him seriously, and Harry laughs again, ignoring the pain it puts through his chest. "Do you want to share a compartment on the train tomorow?"

"Yeah. I'm probably going to sleep for a lot of the way home, though," Harry admits. "One of the house elves said so long as I leave it on the train when we get off, I can borrow a pillow for the journey." Hermione nods seriously, and she then she throws herself forwards, hugging Harry so tightly he lets out a little noise of pain against her neck.

"Oh, God, sorry, did that hurt?"

"A little bit," Harry nods. "But it's fine." He looks up to the staff table, where Snape and McGonagall are stood on the raised platform still, talking very seriously together. Occasionally, one of them will point at Harry, so he has no misconceptions as to what the conversation is about. "Told you we'd beat you stupid Gryffindors," Harry says, indicating the green banners hanging merrily from the Great Hall's ceiling. Hermione snorts.

"Well, we'll beat you next year," she says firmly.

"I bet you a Galleon you don't."

"Mum always told me not to gamble," Hermione says, beginning to walk towards the door.

"You only say that 'cause you'll lose!" Harry calls after her, and he half-limps up to the staff table.

"You look well, Potter," McGonagall says unconvincingly.

"Isn't lying meant to be against your house code or something?" Harry asks, and McGonagall gives him a thin smile.

"Glad to see you're back to your usual self." Snape steps neatly from the dais, and he begins to walk with Harry from the Great Hall.

"Sorry," Harry says. "About thinking you were going to steal the Stone." Snape says nothing. "And, uh, you're welcome. For saving your life."

"Ten points from Slytherin, Potter."

"We just won the House Cup!"

"Then next September, Slytherin will begin at a disadvantage." Harry lets out a loud noise of frustration, and he glares up at Snape's slight smirk. "Go to bed, Potter."

* * *

"Oi, Potter! What's this about you starting us on -10 points next year?"

"It's not my fault Snape is a pillock, Frank!" Harry grumbles as he gets off the train, hauling his trunk after him, and Francois comes forwards, ruffling Harry's hair and pulling him into a half hug.

"It is, Potter," Francois says as Harry tries, and fails, to get free. "It's definitely your fault."

"Get off!" Harry says, and Francois ruffles his hair once more before he lets him go, grinning down at him. "Go Floo back to France already." Francois laughs, and he gives Harry a little wave as he makes his way down the platform. Harry watches after him for a moment, shaking his head, and then he turns back to Hermione.

"You got hold of your trunk?" he asks.

"Yeah. I'm glad I got that featherlight enchantment on it," she says, dragging it behind her on its two wheels, and Harry nods his head. They walk together, and they exit through into the main part of King's Cross station. "Mum, Dad!" Mr and Mrs Granger come forwards, both of them leaning down to hug Hermione as tightly as they can, and Harry grins at them. Mr Granger is about 5'8" with hair cropped short to his head and thickly rimmed, square glasses, and Mrs Granger is a tall woman with hair just like Hermione's, thick and curly down to her shoulders.

"And you must be Harry," Mrs Granger says, "I'm Peggy, and this is Jon." Harry grins at them, putting out his hand to shake. "Where are your folks?"

"Oh, they're coming tomorrow," Harry answers with a shrug. "I need new clothes in Muggle London, and I want to pick up some books for the summer, so I'm just gonna stay at the Leaky Cauldron tonight and they're going to pick me up tomorrow." Dumbledore had said he had to go back, but he'd never specified he had to go back immediately. All three Grangers are staring at him in apparent horror. "What?"

"Harry, you can't possibly stay in London on your own," Mr Granger says, looking affronted at the very thought.

"Why not? I'll be fine."

"Harry!" Hermione says, "You can't- you're too young." Harry stares at her, and he wants to point out that he just fought a Dark Lord for one of the most desirable objects in the magical world, but Hermione had asked for him not to mention that to her parents, lest they figure out how dangerous her new school is.

"We'll put both of your trunks in the car," Mrs Granger says, "And then we'll go around with you, alright? We'll have a meal in London, and then we'll drive you back home."

"No, no, Little Whinging's an hour out of London, Mrs Granger, you don't have to do that! I'll be fine!" Mr and Mrs Granger have the firm, determined looks on their faces that Harry recognizes from Hermione's own - there's no way he can possibly convince them otherwise.

"What do you need in London, Harry?" Hermione asks, and Harry looks helplessly between the three of the Grangers, hopelessly outnumbered.

"Well..."

* * *

"Your parents," Harry whispers to Hermione as they stand on the driveway of 4 Privet Drive, "They're pretty amazing." She smiles at him a little, and Harry suppresses the slight inkling of jealousy he feels in his chest.

"You're my friend," Hermione says, a bit awkwardly, but still in the same very quiet tone, so that her parents don't hear. "I've never really had any, so I guess they're overprotective." Harry throws her arms around her, and they hug tightly. "Did that one hurt?"

"Yeah," Harry admits. "But not as much." Hermione pulls back, grinning brightly at him and showing all of her teeth. "I'll write you tomorrow."

"Oh, it's okay," Hermione says airily, "I know I'm at the bottom of your correspondence pile. If there's any emergency, though, just call the house phone - you've still got the number, right?"

"No, Hermione, in the five minutes since your dad handed it to me, I've lost it." She slaps him in the chest, and then remembers and looks guilty as he winces. "I'll see you next September," he says brightly, grasping at the handle of his trunk and holding his shopping bags with his other hand.

"See you next September, Harry," Hermione says, going back to the car, and Harry walks reluctantly up to the door of the Dursleys' home, ringing the doorbell with a resigned movement. 9 weeks with the Dursleys sounds terrible, but given the year he's had, it can't possibly be that bad.

He hopes so, anyway.

 **FIN**


	21. Year Two: The Long Summer

Summer that year in Little Whinging, Surrey, is hot. Harry sweats a little as he kneels outside, lips pressed together as he focuses on the wood fence in front of him. Dudley's idiot friends had cracked part of the frame away last week, and now Harry carefully nails it back into place. There are only four pickets that need to be replaced, and then he'll start about painting them white.

A white picket fence, in Harry's mind, only adds to the comically cartoonish state of Little Whinging's perfectly manicured lawns and flowerbeds, but Aunt Petunia had had it installed in January.

"Are you nearly done, boy?" demands Uncle Vernon from the doorstep. Harry holds the hammer in his right hand, closing his eyes for just a second to keep from snapping at the man.

"Nearly, Uncle Vernon. I'm just going to nail the last two panels in place, and then I'll put on the first coat of paint."

"The neighbours can see you."

"Can they?" Harry whistles. "I never realized."

"Don't you cheek me!" Harry rolls his eyes, lining up another nail, and he ignores Uncle Vernon as he stomps forwards, body rolling gelatinously under the brown fabric of his jumper and cheeks quickly purpling. Harry hammers the nail into place, carefully, and then he holds the hammer in his lap, looking up at Uncle Vernon with mockingly expectant eyes.

As soon as Harry had entered 4 Privet Drive upon his return from London, Uncle Vernon had snatched his trunk from him and thrown it under the stairs, locking the latch with a newly bought padlock. Only Harry's Muggle shopping bags and Hedwig had been permitted to accompany him up the stairs to Dudley's second bedroom, and all Harry actually had to entertain him inside were a few Muggle novels Mrs Granger had bought him as an early birthday present and the set of wizard-themed, Muggle playing cards that had made him laugh when he'd seen them in one of the charity shops.

Before driving him to Little Whinging from London, the Grangers had accompanied Harry in buying some extra reading material in Diagon Alley, as well as more parchment and quills, but they'd also gone through different charity shops in the Muggle part of London. Harry had picked up some Muggle trousers, t-shirts, jumpers and shoes that wouldn't raise eyebrows as much as Dudley's ridiculously over-sized hand-me-downs, and he and Hermione had also picked out some different Muggle paperbacks - Mr and Mrs Granger had said they didn't read enough Muggle fiction at school, and Harry didn't think they were wrong. The cards had been a 50p afterthought, and he'd just thought the pictures of black-robed sorcerers and bright green witches were funny.

Three days into the summer, unable to do his homework, read any of his new magical books, and left to do chores outside, Harry's really beginning to lose patience with his Muggle relatives.

"Can I help you, Uncle Vernon?"

"You'd better not be doing- doing- that." Harry stares up at him. His wand is tucked into his jean pocket, and while he'd received a note explaining the illegality of performing magic outside of school, keeping his wand to hand isn't against any rules.

"I can stop fixing the fence if you really want me to," Harry says dryly, "But I feel like Aunt Petunia might be annoyed."

"You know what I mean!"

"What?" Harry asks innocently. "Magic?" Vernon gasps, going such an extreme shade of purple he looks like he might spontaneously transmogrify into a plum.

"Don't," he growls, "Don't you say that word!"

"Spellwork? Sorcery? Enchantment?" Vernon stamps his foot hard on the ground, shaking his fist, but Harry doesn't even flinch. What's the man going to do, hit him? Lock him inside? Kick him out of the house? Harry could only be so lucky. Vernon stalks back up the path and into the house, slamming the door so hard behind him that the windows of 4 Privet Drive shake, and Harry looks at the picket in his hand, frowning.

Why is he doing this? He doesn't like the Dursleys, and by no means do they like him. He doesn't want to be here, but they can't actually force him to do these chores any more than Harry could force Dudley to say please and thank you. Harry drops the piece of wood on the ground, standing up and making his way into the house.

The television is blaring in the living room, and Harry can see Uncle Vernon and Dudley's eyes focused on the television, which is showing some cars racing around a track, and Harry leans to the left, peering down into the kitchen through the mostly-closed door. Aunt Petunia is concentrated on the cupcakes she's baking, intent on making them without letting a single drop of mixture touch the kitchen counter.

Harry turns back to his cupboard and, with a short, sharp movement of the hammer, he brings it down on the padlock's edge. The cheap metal snaps under the sudden pressure, and Harry pulls it off, dropping it uncaringly onto the floor with the hammer. Both drop almost silently onto the carpet, drowned out by the loud engine roars from the television.

He grasps his trunk by its handles, carrying it sideways up the stairs without letting it hit the floor. The charm on it means that once things are put inside the trunk, they don't add anything to its weight, but he still has to carry the weight of the trunk itself, and given its big and bulky shape, it's not exactly easy to maneuver. Once the trunk is in his room, though, Harry sets it down, opening it up. In the corner of the room, perched on top of her open cage, Hedwig lets out a quiet trill of amusement.

"What?" Harry asks. "None of them stopped me." Hedwig tilts her head, looking at him in the strange, intelligent way she always does, and Harry smiles as he looks to the trunk.

The trunk is enchanted, as all of the trunks intended for Hogwarts usually are, and Harry pulls forwards the compartment intended for books, neatly putting his new Muggle books inside before he closes the compartment back. Each compartment is visible as a leather strap sticking out of an apparent drawer in the side of the trunk, but once he pulls it out, it expands and lets him add or remove objects. He opens up a compartment he hasn't used before, and he folds his new Muggle clothes inside. He never bothered to pack his things into dresser or wardrobe in Dudley's room, which are overfull with discarded junk, and it's nice to have his stuff in its proper place. He thinks about throwing the plastic bags the Muggle purchases had come in away, but then he shrugs, folding them and putting them in with his Muggle clothes.

With that, he removes some parchment, quills and ink from the bottom of the trunk, and he begins to write.

 _Dear Hermione,_

 _Sorry for the delay. The Dursleys locked my trunk up once I_

 _got into the house, and I just pulled it out from under the_

 _stairs. They're probably going to have a little fit about not_

 _being able to withhold my evil magic stuff away from me,_

 _but I can't just do chores all summer and pretend I'm not a_

 _wizard._

 _Hope your summer's going well, and write me back with_

 _what you're up to! I'm probably gonna start on that Potions_

 _essay tonight - I just wish the library in town was anything_

 _like as useful as the one at school, but I guess we have to make_

 _do._

 _Speak to you soon,_

 _Harry_

He shakes the parchment to dry the ink a little bit, and then he starts another letter.

 _Dear Fred and George,_

 _Hey, guys, hope you got home all day. I hear someone confiscated_

 _that toilet seat from you on the train, which is a real big shame -_

 _I feel like it would have been a really good thing to mount on the_

 _wall, you know, kinda like how like people mount hunting trophies._

 _D'you think you guys would be able to teach me to pick locks_

 _the non-magical way? I've seen you guys get around padlocks that_

 _way, and I just had to smash a lock here with a hammer. My aunt_

 _and uncle locked my trunk out of the way, and I'd just like to know_

 _a subtler way to uh, you know._

 _Defy my relatives, like any good kid should._

 _Hope Percy hasn't murdered one of you yet,_

 _Harry_

He puts a friendly note to Mrs Weasley with the one for the twins, tying the two up together, and then he ties all three to Hedwig's leg. "Hey, drop Hermione's off first, and then take the Weasleys', okay? I'm gonna write some to the Malfoys, and I need to write Amelia Bones about recommendations for defence books next year." Hedwig replies with a quiet hoot, giving an affectionate nip to Harry's cheek.

"Boy!" Harry hears Vernon thunder from downstairs, and he runs across the room, sitting down on his trunk. Uncle Vernon throws open the door, staring at Harry furiously. "You're not keeping that up here!" Hedwig hops to the windowsill, and Harry glances at her.

"Well, the thing is, Uncle Vernon, Hedwig's just about to take off some letters. She's going to go to some friends I have, you know, and it's not against the law to withhold my stuff or anything, of course. But the thing is, if my friends were to get these letters from me and then not get any more, or if you were to take my trunk away from me, they might worry. And they might show up at my house to see me, check in on me. In their... Robes." Behind Vernon, Petunia gasps, looking horrified. Vernon growls, and he slams the door shut without saying anything more.

Harry and Hedwig meet each other's eyes. "I think that went quite well," Harry says. "Don't you?" And with that, Hedwig flies from the room.

No one bothers to give him any chores after that. Harry joins the Dursleys for meals, eats quietly and leaves. He does the dishes if he sees some in the sink, but both Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon do their best to avoid Harry, and so does Dudley. The reason for the latter might be because Harry takes to reciting gibberish under his breath as soon as Dudley steps into his vicinity, but Dudley avoids him, which is the most important thing.

For the next few days, Harry stays in his room, studying the new books he'd bought and doing his homework. Occasionally, he'll play solitaire, and upon fiddling with the machine for a little while, he'd even managed to get Dudley's abandoned, handheld radio to work, and he listens to the radio. It's really nice, listening to the radio - occasionally the Slytherins would gather around a radio in the common room to listen to a play or an interview, and now and then they played a Weird Sisters record or something, but Muggle music is so different to the wizard stuff, and the radio announcers take their jobs a little less seriously.

He doesn't receive any letters. He's not angry or upset, but he's... Uncomfortable. With the number of letters he sends, how could it be the case that everyone would stop sending him letters at once? His Prophet arrives weekly, just as usual, but there's never any post.

A week and a half into the summer, Harry makes his way downstairs, picking up the phone from its place in the hall. He doesn't know why he isn't receiving any post, but he knows that it isn't right, or normal, and he knows it shouldn't be going on.

"What are you doing?" demands Uncle Vernon.

"Uh, using the telephone. I'm only calling London, so it shouldn't be too expensive, but I can give you the money if that's a problem."

"You can't use the phone," Uncle Vernon says, and Harry watches him for a second.

"You'd rather I walk into town and use a public payphone to call one of my wizard friends?" Uncle Vernon seems to consider this for a second, and then grumbles out a word that might have been "Fine." before he shuffles back into the living room. Harry punches in the number, and then he holds the handset to his ear, leaning against the wall.

"Granger residence," comes the answer.

"Hi, Mr Granger, it's Harry Potter," Harry says. "Is Hermione home?"

"Oh, of course, Harry, give me a moment-" Harry hears Mr Granger call upstairs for Hermione, and he hears the sound of her steps on a stairwell before she comes to the phone.

"Hi, Harry. Are you okay?" Hermione's voice sounds slightly sleepy, despite it being nearly 4 in the afternoon, and Harry expects that for the summer she's started staying up later than healthy to finish books, and he can't help but be amused.

"Uh, yeah, I'm okay, but did you get my letter? I've sent some to you, the twins, Mrs Weasley, and then Draco, Blaise, Theo, a lady I know in the Ministry, Padma Patil, Afifa- I've sent off loads of letters, but I've not had any responses back at all. And I know it could just be a coincidence, because I'm still getting my paper, but..."

"I've sent you a letter, Harry," Hermione says uncertainly, "The twins said they'd sent you one too, and I don't know about the rest, but Padma always writes back really promptly, doesn't she?"

"Yeah," Harry says. "She does."

"This isn't normal, Harry," Hermione says, and Harry sighs into the receiver as Hermione confirms that he's not just being paranoid about this. It's going to be a long, long summer.


	22. Year Two: Dobby & The Dursleys

The next morning, Aunt Petunia opens up the door to Harry's bedroom, and she stares down at him. Harry concentrates on the two books in front of him.

"What are you doing?" she asks stiffly.

"My Charms professor set us a riddle as a piece of extra homework. We get a mystery prize if can figure out the answer - you can't charm, conjure or do any spellwork if you expect an ingredient to be magically active in the right way in a potion. It's why you have to either prepare ingredients yourself or have a traditionally enchanted set of equipment to prep them for you: ingredients work in different magical ways, but they'd be tainted if you used a spell on them. The picture's just a love potion in a wooden bowl, and there's magic in it, and I can't figure out how." Harry had really just been talking aloud, and now Harry glances up, staring up at his Aunt Petunia. There's something pinched in the expression on her face, her lips pursed. There's a long, pregnant pause between them.

"Sorry," Harry says, "No m-word." Aunt Petunia shakes her head, as if drawing herself abruptly from some reverie - probably about dropping Harry out of a window - and her eyes focus on his face again.

"Vernon has a coworker coming for dinner this evening," she says stiffly, raising her chin and making her long neck look even longer. "You are to remain upstairs, and make no noise. We've not told him you live here, and you aren't to allow him to believe otherwise. You will be utterly silent." Harry stares at her.

"Uh, no, Aunt Petunia, I won't," he says, "Firstly, because I'm a human child, not your pet rabbit, and secondly, because it will benefit you more to tell him I exist. Tell him I'm your disadvantaged, orphaned nephew who the two of you took in out of the goodness of your hearts, and how my debilitating shyness, numerous disorders and extreme uncertainty of strangers leaves me unable to come out and say hello." Aunt Petunia seems to consider this for a moment, and then she looks appraisingly at Harry.

"You won't leave your room," she says firmly.

"I usually don't," he replies, and he lies back on the floor as he stares up at the ceiling. Michael Jackson is on the radio again, and Harry closes his eyes, not really listening to the lyrics of the song as he tries to figure out the little, written exercise. It looks like it should be so simple, but it isn't. A wooden bowl full of liquid, and the caption says that it's full of active magic, but potions aren't actively magical.

Harry groans, and presses his face into the carpet. He suspects Hermione and Draco have already got it, given that they're both at the top of their classes, and Harry can't even hope one of them will send him a clue in the post, because his post isn't coming. He's so bored, he can barely stand it, and he's doing his best not to just read all of his books in one go.

There's a loud pop, and Harry sighs, wondering what the Hell Dudley is doing next door, but then he turns his head, and he freezes where he lies on his back on the floor. There's a house elf in his bedroom. Harry stares at it, wondering for a moment if he'd left something at the school, but this house elf isn't wearing the Hogwarts uniform of an emblazoned tea-towel - it's wearing a grubby pillowcase that dwarfs its tiny form.

"Harry Potter," it proclaims in its sharp, squeaky voice, "Must not return to Hogwarts this year."

"Firstly," Harry says, remaining on the floor and wondering if his life could possibly get more bizarre, "That's a really rude way to introduce yourself. Secondly, Harry Potter will go where he wants. Thirdly, why are you in my bedroom?" The house elf stares at him with its huge eyes, its mouth set into a serious frown, its little, leathery lips trembling. After a moment or two, Harry feels a little bad for being so sharp with the little thing, and he says, "Sorry." He sits up, rubbing over his own face, and he asks, more gently, "Why are you here?"

"I is here to warn Harry Potter, sir. Harry Potter must not go to Hogwarts this year - bad things will be happening this year."

"Bad things happen there every year. They're called exams." The house elf looks astonished for a second, and then wildly shakes his head.

"No, Harry Potter, sir, bad things, terribly bad things."

"What sort of things?" Harry presses, but the house elf lets out a wild noise, bashing his own head into the wall, and Harry grabs him from behind, pulling him away to stop him short. "Dobby can't tell!" the house elf wails. "Dobby shouldn't be here!"

"Look, uh, Dobby, I appreciate your concern and all, but I'm definitely going to Hogwarts no matter what you say. People would miss me if I didn't go back."

"People who don't even write Harry Potter letters?" Dobby asks, looking sneaky, and Harry stares down at him, anger flaring inside him.

"Pretty sure it's illegal to steal people's post, Dobby, even if you are a house elf. You'd better hand it over right now, or I'm going to contact the Ministry." The house elf looks smug.

"And how would Harry Potter sir call the Ministry? Harry Potter is only a young wizard, and mustn't be using his wand for his spells."

"Harry Potter only needs to put his wand out to call the Knight Bus and scream bloody murder about the monster illegally stealing his post and threatening his family, Dobby," Harry says lowly as he clenches his fists at his sides. Why should this happen to him? Why can't he just have a nice summer, writing to his friends, without some bloody house elf stealing his post and trying to convince him not to go to school?

"Dobby would never threaten Harry Potter's family!" the house elf squeaks out, affronted and offended.

"Give me my post!" Harry snaps, and Dobby disappears with another loud pop. Harry sighs, sitting down on the floor again, and he turns off his radio, lying there in the silence of his bedroom. If he listens hard, he can hear Uncle Vernon regaling the Masons with a vaguely racist joke, so he does his best not to listen at all.

* * *

"Yeah, so he's stealing my post. I don't know what to do, to be honest - I know I threatened about the Knight Bus, but without going to the Ministry myself, I don't know what I can do about it."

"You'd think they'd have a phone in the place," Hermione complains, "It's 1992."

"I don't think 1992 means the same thing for wizards," Harry points out, and she gives a rueful laugh. There's a loud squeal of tires outside, followed by a scream, and Harry sighs. "Look, sorry, Hermione, I think Dudley's just run something over outside. I'll call you next week."

"Talk to you then, Harry. I'll send a letter and see if it gets through."

"Okiedoke, thanks," Harry puts the phone down, running to the door and pulling it open, but in the doorway he stops short. Dudley is nowhere to be seen - it's only now, having had two seconds to think about, that Harry remembers he's upstairs playing some videogame.

"Hi, Potter," Fred says, grinning down at Harry. He and George are wearing matching corduroy jeans and their F and G jumpers from Christmas, looking completely normal in Muggle attire. "Hope you don't mind-"

"But we're here to kidnap you," George finishes, and Harry smiles up at them, forgetting his annoyance at Dobby, and Dudley, and the Dursleys, and every other thing in Little Whinging that begins with D.

"Oh, brilliant," Harry says. "Come in, guys."


	23. Year Two: The Burrow

"Boy! Who is it?" comes the demand from the living room, and Harry glances towards the door.

"Some school friends," Harry calls back to Uncle Vernon, "Don't worry, they're here to kidnap me." He says it in a casual, blasé tone, and the response he hears isn't entirely unexpected.

"WHAT-" Uncle Vernon seems to register the idea of Harry leaving the house, and Harry hears the armchair in the living room give a groan of protestation as his uncle sits himself back down in it. "Alright. Off you go." George snorts, following Harry up the stairs, and Harry runs up between him and Fred.

"How did you guys get here?" he asks, and Fred gives an easy shrug of his shoulders. Without robes draping loosely over them, Harry can see that the Weasley twins are actually quite well-muscled, especially around the arms, and he finds himself wondering if wizards have gyms. He can't really imagine Lucius Malfoy lifting dumbbells or doing push-ups, but maybe it's a bit like wearing jumpers, and only less serious wizards have them.

"Knight Bus," Fred answers, and he and George watch as Harry grabs his stuff together, neatly packing the few things that are left out into his trunk. "What, you not unpacked yet?"

"This is my cousin's second bedroom," Harry explains, not looking up from his stuff as he folds it up and chucks it inside. "The chest of drawers and the wardrobe aren't empty." Frowning, George pulls open the wardrobe, and he stares at the contents of the wardrobe. Inside is a messy pile of clothes Dudley had hated for whatever reason, as well as smaller toys and dishevelled packs of Pokémon trading cards. Dudley has asked for them, and they'd been bought for him, but the actual game proved to be too boring for him.

"I've heard of people having guest bedrooms," Fred says, leaning forwards and uncertainly giving a stuffed cat an uncertain poke. "But I've never heard of people having a second bedroom."

"Seems a bit unnecessary," George agrees.

"It's because he has so much stuff," Harry says, shaking his head as he pulls his trunk shut and latches it in place. "It just doesn't all fit in his bedroom."

"Your cousin?" Fred prompts, a slightly evil glint coming into his eye.

"Yeah," Harry answers, "And you're not meeting him." Fred's glint disappears, replaced with shining disappointment, but he doesn't bother to ask why Harry's not going to let him meet Dudley. Hedwig climbs neatly into her cage, settling herself in with a dignified ruffle of her feathers and a quiet hoot, and Harry hands her cage to George, but before he can lift up his trunk Fred takes it off the floor. "Fred, I can do that."

"Ah ah ah," George says scoldingly. "We're kidnapping you. That means we do the heavy lifting. You got all your stuff?"

"Yeah," Harry says, and as they come down the stairs, he sees Aunt Petunia in the hall, glaring at the Weasley twins with suspicion. "I'm going with Fred and George, so you guys can be rid of me. See you next summer."

"Hmph," is all Aunt Petunia says, and then she stalks off into the kitchen again. Harry puts out his hand for the Knight Bus, and he watches in excited awe as the bright purple monster of a vehicle comes roaring down the street. He'd seen the photos in An Introduction to The Wizarding World last year, but it's even more ridiculous in real life, and he grins at the conductor as they get on. Fred sets Harry's trunk down next to a brown armchair, but George keeps hold of Hedwig's cage.

"Back to the Burrow, if you would, Stan-my-man," Fred says brightly to the spotty conductor, who squints down at Harry. Harry is glad he hasn't had a haircut for a while - his hair covers his scar quite well.

"Who's that?" Stan demands.

"I'm Tom," Harry says with a straight face, ignoring Fred's snort as he drops himself onto a blue chaise long. The furniture on the Knight Bus is ridiculously mismatched, and as the bus roars fast along the winding roads, the chairs and sofas slide on the floor. It's fabulous, Harry decides.

"You a Muggle?" the conductor asks.

"Yeah," Harry says, "That's why I've got a wand in my hand, and why I'm not freaked out at all by the giant purple bus I'm on." The spotty conductor lets out an irritable huff of noise.

"Can't be too careful," he mutters, and he takes their sickles for the fare before walking down the bus.

"Bit of an idiot, isn't he?"

"Stan Shunpike, his name is," George says, "He was in the same year as Charlie. Charlie thought he was always a right pillock, mind. He was a Ravenclaw, but no one could ever figure out why." Harry laughs, holding tightly to the sides of his chair as it slides suddenly to the left.

"Thanks for this," Harry says seriously. "I think I would have gone mad if I'd been there any longer, not getting any post, and I've discovered why I'm not getting it, by the way. A house elf's been stealing it from me."

"What?" And with that, Harry tells them the whole strange conversation he'd had the night before, and the way the house elf had hurt himself, telling Harry he wasn't supposed to be there. By the time he's done with explaining what had happened, the three of them are stepping off the bus onto a dirt path, George carrying Harry's trunk and Fred cradling Hedwig's cage. Harry undoes it as they walk, and Hedwig flies out, circling in the air above them and stretching her wings.

"If he was hurting himself, he mustn't have had permission to be there," George says, shifting the trunk in his hands. "That's weird, Harry, really weird. Ask Dad about it when we get in, though." They make their way up the hill slowly, and when the house comes into sight, Harry's even more delighted than he was upon seeing the workings of the Knight Bus. The magical world is endlessly exciting, but it's things like these that truly make Harry happy.

"Your house is amazing," Harry says immediately.

"Yeah, tell that to our mum," Fred says, "She keeps complaining about it." As soon as they're inside, George sets a bowl of food out for Hedwig, and Fred turns on the hob, heating up a pan. "Bacon sarnies, eh, lads?"

"You two are really domestic when you're not at school, aren't you?" Harry asks, and George whistles under his breath. "Cooking, feeding the owl. I bet you do your own washing."

"Firstly, you have to do your own washing in this house, else you end up coming down the stairs in nothing but one of Dad's socks, a pair of Ginny's knickers and a leather vest of Bill's," George says, pulling butter out of a cupboard and beginning to slice bread. "Secondly, you're not to brag about our housekeeping skills."

"All the boys will be trying to get us as trophy wives," Fred agrees gravely, "We want them to love us for our bodies, Potter, not our incredible charisma or ability to cook banquets."

"When have either of you ever cooked a banquet?" comes a voice from the doorway, and Harry looks to see Molly Weasley, her hands on her hips as she looks between the three of us.

"When have you ever let us?" Fred asks, brandishing his spatula like a weapon. "We'd do a marvellous job."

"A marvellous job of turning all the guests colours, I'd expect," Molly says, and Fred shrugs his shoulders.

"That's what a banquet's all about, Mum." Harry laughs, and Mrs Weasley looks at him properly, beaming down at him.

"There you are, Harry. Fred and George said they were inviting you down for the day." Harry stares at her for a second, mutely.

"We didn't actually say a day," George says, and Mrs Weasley's head whips to stare at her son. "We didn't specify any time-frame, Mum. You did that."

"And you wouldn't send Harry back to his aunt and uncle, would you?" Fred asks, putting a bacon sandwich on the table in front of Harry. "Look at him, Mum, he's skin and bones - they barely feed him, and they've got him in his cousin's second bedroom. They didn't even care that we were taking him."

"Now, you can't, George, Fred- do they- you did let them know you were going, didn't you, Harry?" Mrs Weasley asks anxiously.

"They were quite glad to see the back of me, to be honest, Mrs Weasley," Harry admits, "But I didn't realize - if I'm an imposition I can just-"

"Oh, don't be silly," she says firmly, her worry fading away like a Vanished teaspoon. "You could never be an imposition, Harry. Do eat up now. Fred is right: you do look a bit skinny." Harry meets Fred's eyes over Mrs Weasley's shoulder, and the older boy gives him a thumbs up and mouths, " _Spot on, Potter._ "

* * *

"Why do you never cook for me?" Ginny demands. She's still wearing a thick, pink dressing gown over some flannel pyjamas, and she crosses her arms tightly over her chest as she glares up at her older brother.

"Because you don't eat enough vegetables," Fred answers, "You should be digging in the garden, biting into raw potatoes and gnomes, like a healthy young person. That's what I did."

"You didn't do that!"

"I did so. Ask Mum, she's got pictures somewhere."

"I was alive, you pillock, I'd have seen you!"

"Oh, no, I only did this in the dead of night, when you were asleep. The potatoes are asleep then."

"Potatoes don't sleep!"

"I meant the gnomes." George moves his queenside pawn, and Harry shakes his head as he tries to think of a way to respond.

"Are they always like that?" Harry asks. Ginny had come downstairs about ten minutes ago, and hasn't actually noticed Harry yet, much to his relief. Not that he has anything against her - he hasn't met her yet - but Fred and George had implied she was a bit overly in love with the idea of the Boy Who Lived. She'd asked Fred to make her a bacon sandwich, which he'd immediately and dramatically refused.

"Nah," George answers. "Fred only goes into abstract silliness when Ginny's trying to get him to do stuff. It gets right on her nerves, it does. He'll make her a sandwich once she gets angry enough to leave the room." Harry smiles, telling his kingside rook to move.

"Is it nice? Having siblings? I grew up with Dudley, obviously, but it's not the same." The same jealousy he'd felt when complimenting Hermione's parents makes itself obvious in the pit of Harry's stomach, and he thinks of all the photos he has of his family, all his family who're dead and gone. Would he have siblings, if his mum and dad had lived? Would he have had a little brother, or a little sister?

"It's always been a big household," George admits. "It was Bill, then Charlie, then Percy, then me and Fred, then Ron, then little Ginevra. There's benefits, and there's problems. For example, we could form our own all Weasley Quidditch team, but it's hard to get hot water in the morning. It's easy to ask for homework help from an older sibling, but most of the time the bastard won't give it you."

"Speaking of homework help," Harry says, thinking of the Charms riddle, but George interrupts him.

"Oh, no, no, no. We're going to give you the full Weasley experience, Harry. You're the asker, I'm the bastard."

"Thanks, George," Harry says dryly.

"You're very welcome. Checkmate." Harry stares down at the board.

"Damn."

* * *

"Hi, Ginny," Harry says later as they all sit outside around a few wooden tables, enjoying the sunshine. "I'm Harry." He puts out his hand for her to shake, and she stares at it, her eyes horrifically wide, but when Fred nudges her she shakes it, offering an awkward, shy smile. Then, she runs off and into the kitchen, ostensibly to help Mrs Weasley with something.

"I shouldn't worry about it, Harry," Percy says, buttering his toast with an obsessive precision, "I think she's merely slightly awed by your, uh, celebrity, but she'll get used to it. She's horrible to the rest of us."

"That's true," Fred agrees. "She threw George down the stairs one summer when he threatened to cut off all her hair. The first bout of accidental magic we ever saw out of her, and she used it to try and kill one of us."

"Ah, that summer," George says, an expression of fond reminiscence on his face, "I still have the scars. She's a vicious girl, Harry. She'll come out of Hogwarts with severed heads, not trophies."

"You're not going to argue with that, Percy?" Harry asks lightly, and Percy looks up from his toast, apparently surprised to be addressed again. His smile is nice, Harry thinks, and he feels an odd twinge run through him as he watches the older boy draw his hand through his hair. In school, Percy is an officious perfectionist that barely ever talks to Harry if Hermione isn't present, but here he's an officious perfectionist who borders on friendly.

"Oh, I just have to hope none of the heads are mine, to be honest," Percy says lightly. "Of course, she won't be able to reach mine. Fred and George will have to buy step ladders." Fred gasps dramatically, clutching at his chest, and George does the same thing.

"You'd better not have been calling us short just now, Percival," George warns. "We'll kick you off the Quidditch team."

"I'm only on the Quidditch team as a favour to Oliver," Percy points out, pushing his glasses up his nose. "If you kick me out, it'll annoy him more than me." Fred sighs.

"He's right," he says mournfully. "The practices are bad enough as it is." Mrs Weasley comes out of the kitchen with Ginny in tow, then, setting a dozen levitating bowls and plates down on the table, and Harry stares in excited awe at the different things she sets down. There are two pies, a salad, a steaming dish of potatoes-

"This looks great, Mrs Weasley," Harry says.

"Thank you, Harry," she says, and she sits beside Harry. They're all sat around two mismatched tables, and none of the chairs match either, but the Weasleys' garden is huge and bright and decorated all over with flowers, vegetable patches and ornaments, and it's nice to eat outside like this. Mr Weasley runs out of the house, and then he stops short, peering at the table. Harry can see his lips moving as he counts the children he sees, and he tries to keep from laughing as Mrs Weasley says, "We're missing Ron, dear." Mr Weasley goes back to the house, and Harry can hear him yelling Ron's name up the stairs.

"He's sulking because you're here," Fred supplies. "He thinks inviting a poor, orphaned Slytherin to stay with us is a betrayal."

"Fred!" Mrs Weasley says. "Don't call him that."

"It's alright, he calls me much worse things at school," Harry says innocently, and he pretends not to see Fred's look of indignation as Mrs Weasley glares at him even harder.

"Well, you don't mind staying in Ron's room, do you, Harry?"

"Er-"

"Don't worry, Mum," George breaks in. "We've already cleared a space and put the spare bed for Harry in ours." Harry feels relief warm through him. He hopes Ron will calm down a little this summer, without Seamus and Dean to back him up, but he doesn't want to share a bedroom with him for the time being.

Ron lopes out of the house, sitting at the table next to Ginny, and Harry frowns at him. "Have you gotten taller?" he asks, trying not to sound as personally offended as he feels.

"Yeah," Ron replies, and George pats Harry's head.

"Don't worry, Harry. Maybe you'll be as tall as Flitwick one day."

"Shall we start?" Arthur says hurriedly, and Harry shakes George's hand off his hair, reaching for a piece of chicken.

* * *

"And this house elf's name was Dobby?" Arthur asks, scribbling down a messy note to himself on a piece of parchment. There's a deep, serious frown on his features, and he'd listened very carefully when Harry had explained the whole thing.

"Do you have like, a registry?" Harry asks, and Arthur shakes his head.

"No, the magical census only takes names of non-humanoid beings living in households, and house elves aren't registered at birth or death," Arthur says, shaking his head, "But I can ask some questions, and there are registries of house elf owners, with how many house elves they have in their possession."

"But he wasn't there on orders," Harry points out, "He kept hurting himself, punishing himself."

"I'm afraid house elves are only really thought about in relation to their owners, Harry," Arthur says quietly, giving a helpless shrug of his shoulders. "But I'll see about having someone get your post back for you, alright?" He gently pats Harry's shoulder, and Harry offers the other man a small smile.

"Thanks, Mr Weasley."

That night, Harry lies on the bed to the side of the room, listening to the quiet chatter of Fred and George as they pour over a set of books a complicated set of notes Harry doesn't even try to understand. So used as he is to the noise of the television downstairs as he tries to sleep, their conversation lulls him into an easy sleep.


	24. Year Two: The Mysterious Appeal of Percy

While rescuing Harry from the Dursleys had been Fred and George's idea, by no means did it mean the two of them were going to sit about and entertain him all day. They welcomed Harry into their room and would explain concepts they were experimenting with if he asked about them, but getting one answer almost always meant he had three new questions to ask, and so Harry had gracefully ducked out of watching their experimentation.

Using everything from potions ingredients to hand-picked flowers to stray hair off the family cat, Fred and George seem intent on discovering everything they can over the summer, apparently for fun. It's the sort of complex work that Theodore Nott would enjoy, but it isn't Harry's thing at all, and the twins don't find his disinterest rude. Ginny spends all her time either locked in her room, away from Harry, or in the village, away from Harry; Ron staunchly ignores him if Harry looks at him, and Percy...

Well, Harry likes Percy, but Percy can be very, very dull. At the moment, he's working hard on A History of Magic essay, and he'll talk about his premise to anyone who gets too close.

So, for the time being, Harry helps Mrs Weasley downstairs. He runs errands for her, brings in the laundry, helps her do the dishes - as much as Mrs Weasley uses magic around the house, she always seems to have forty tasks to complete at one time. Harry is sat at the little table in the Burrow's kitchen, organizing Mrs Weasley's numerous recipe cards by main ingredient. Apparently, the last time she'd had a chance to perform this task had been 1981, and she'd added a lot of cards to it since.

"How did you start out sending letters, Harry?" She asks, and Harry glances up.

"I actually wrote you first," he says, stacking another card in the lamb pile. "But I'd read in my book, An Introduction To The Wizarding World, that writing letters was good, so I basically sent out several. People who'd gone to school with my parents, or people I'd seen in the paper. I didn't expect as many people to write me back as they did." Molly smiles down at him, looking fond as she folds up a pair of startlingly orange pyjamas emblazoned with the Chudley Cannons logo.

"Have you read your Prophet this morning, love?" Harry shakes his head, "Well, there's a letter to the editor about the youth of today you might like to have a look at." Mrs Weasley turns the radio up a bit, and Harry listens to Celestina Warbeck warble as he scans recipe cards and sets them aside in neat piles. She's alright, he thinks, but she's no Michael Jackson.

* * *

 _TO THE EDITOR,_

 _Last week, one of the columns in this paper discussed the_

 _tendency of our children in these times to purchase for_

 _themselves cats and kneazles instead of owls, (as well as_

 _mentioning the resurgence of the pet toad), and their_

 _lacking attention in regard to the tradition of writing letters._

 _It has been my sad understanding in recent years that young_

 _wizards, witches and like have drawn away from the art and_

 _craftsmanship of the letter. Oh, yes, they will send off their owl_

 _order forms and the occasional note on a birthday, but it seems_

 _they have abandoned letter-writing as common practice for_

 _contacting friends and relatives, and most of all for forging new_

 _contacts in the wizarding world. It was a fact I had - morosely -_

 _taken fully into my head._

 _These days, with Floo Powder more readily available and_

 _affordable than ever before now that the War is done with, I_

 _falsely believed that I would never receive a letter from a_

 _person below the age of 20 again._

 _In the past year, I have been proved quite wrong._

 _A young person in attendance at Hogwarts wrote me a letter_

 _in September, asking a very simple question: had I known his_

 _parents before the War?_

 _Indeed, I had, as I had known many of the children we lost in_

 _those dark times, even as those children became adults and_

 _had families of their own. I felt the loss of those children as_

 _keenly as I felt that of my own son and daughter-in-law, and_

 _so I shared with this young man what I could - an anecdote,_

 _a few photographs._

 _Little did I know that he would be so polite and focused on his_

 _epistolary as to write me back, each week, with such a pleasant,_

 _polite tone and such legible (if not pretty) handwriting. In_

 _this man, I see the devotion, the focus, and the willingness_

 _to hold up tradition I should hope to see in any new_

 _generation._

 _I submit that the writing of letters has lost some of its old_

 _splendour, but I disagree with the idea that epistolary is a_

 _dead art: one young man renewed my hope in this regard, and_

 _for that I am most grateful._

 _Yours,_

 _Augusta Longbottom_

Harry stares down at the page. Usually, he throws away his copy of the Prophet upon reading it, but he sits for a long time on top of his bed in Fred and George's bedroom, reading through the printed lines again and again. When Mrs Longbottom writes to him, she usually comes across as stern, normally ordering Harry to read this book or attempt this technique, but he's read a letter where she writes like this. The letter to the editor fills him with a warmth that settles in his chest, and he only feels more of a loss for the letters Dobby is keeping back from him.

"Hey, George," Harry asks quietly, "Have you guys got some something to cut this out?" George hands Harry a set of Muggle scissors with WOOLWORTHS emblazoned on them, and Harry meticulously cuts the letter out, reaching for the small, brown box in which he keeps all of the photos different people had sent him of his family to place it inside.

It's not a precious photo, but it's a precious something, and Harry wants to keep it forever.

* * *

"I'm just going into the village to call Hermione, Mrs Weasley," Harry says, pulling his Weasley jumper over his head. It's the second time he'll be going down into the village, this time on his own, but walking through Ottery St Catchpole is nothing like it is in Little Whinging. People even smile at him as he walks past. "Do you need me to get you anything?"

"You don't need Muggle money for the telephone?" she prompts, frowning at him.

"I've got some, it's alright," Harry assures her. He'd sent a letter to Hermione already, telling her he hadn't received any post yet, but also about his relocation to the Weasleys'.

"If you could just take that basket up to Percy before you go?" Harry glances to the left, and then he grasps at the sides of the wicker washing basket, carrying it quickly up the stairs to Percy's bedroom, and he knocks on the door, balancing the basket on his hip.

"Come in," Percy calls through the door, and Harry pushes the door open, holding up the basket for the older boy to take, but then he stops short in the doorway. Half of Percy's face is covered with a light layer of thick, white shaving cream, and he's using a razor to shave the little bits of ginger stubble growing in on his cheeks and his chin - a Muggle plastic razor, Harry notices, not like Mr Weasley's old-fashioned folding blade. Percy shaves himself in the mirror above the basin in his bedroom, but it's not the shaving that makes Harry stop breathing.

Percy isn't wearing a shirt. Percy Weasley isn't lightly tanned or lightly toned, like the male models Harry'd seen on the covers of Muggle magazines Aunt Petunia always tutted at in Tesco, and nor is his skin clear. Freckles heavily dapple the skin on his arms and his shoulders, and a few of them are visible where his pyjama bottoms hang around his waist, just under his hips. Harry feels a funny twist in his belly, and he feels himself turning red as he drops Percy's basket on the floor. "Going into the village," Harry says awkwardly. "See you later."

He slams the door shut behind him, leaving Percy staring with puzzlement at the door, and he runs down the stairs.

* * *

"So, yeah, if you just ask Mrs Weasley about using her fireplace to come in the morning... I mean, unless you'd rather go with the Weasleys?"

"Nah," Harry says, shaking his head and dropping another 10p piece into the coin slot of the telephone. "Mr and Mrs Weasley said I was welcome to come, but I feel like they're really stressed out about going out with Fred, George, Ginny and Ron in tow, let alone adding me to the group as well, so I figure I'll just stay here and get some reading done. I think Mrs Weasley trusts Percy not to burn the house down with me in it." He hears Hermione laugh, and he leans against the wall of the telephone box, staring up at its plastic ceiling. "Hermione," he says quietly.

"Yeah?"

"Do you think that Percy's- you know. Attractive?" There's a long pause as Hermione takes in the question and digests it. Harry drums his fingers on the side of his leg.

"Not really," Hermione answers, sounding a bit puzzled. "The twins are much better looking, especially George."

"Especially George, eh?" Harry repeats, "I'll tell him that."

"Oh, shut up," Hermione says, "But Percy's not bad-looking." She seems quick to assure him of that, and Harry smiles a little at how earnest she is - she just wants him to feel normal about it, and it's nice. Hermione's a good friend.

"No," Harry agrees, "He's not."

* * *

Harry frowns to himself as he makes his way up towards the Burrow again, thinking to himself. In his hand, he holds a paper bag of sweet letters, and his gaze is concentrated on the ground as he tries to think of what he needs from Diagon Alley and Muggle London tomorrow. He'll have to write down a proper list once he's inside - he'll only end up forgetting half of it, otherwise.

"Harry Potter, sir," says a squeaky voice as he enters the Weasleys' garden, and Harry whips around, staring with wide eyes at the house elf stood on Mrs Weasley's well-trodden garden path.

"Dobby!" he hisses.

"Harry Potter must not return to Hogwarts this year," Dobby says plaintively, stamping one of his little feet onto the ground. Harry's gaze flickers towards the door to the Burrow, which is barely seven feet away, and Harry wonders how fast he could run that distance.

Harry sighs, running his hand through his hair, and then says, "Fine." Dobby's ears perk up.

"Yes?" he says, tennis ball eyes shining with hope and relief.

"If you give me all my letters, right now, I won't go back to Hogwarts," Harry says gravely. "I'll write a letter to Beauxbatons right now, and ask to go there." Dobby beams at him, looking as if Christmas has come early. That is- well. House elves probably don't get to celebrate Christmas, but still. Dobby conjures a wooden box which is open on top, and Harry stares at the letters inside, nestled with a few parcels, each tied neatly with twine. Dobby stole them, but he treated them very carefully.

"Harry Potter promises he won't go back to Hogwarts?"

"Harry Potter promises no such thing," Harry replies, and he sprints as fast as he can into the Burrow, yelling to Mrs Weasley about the house elf in the garden as if it's the worst thing imaginable.

And given how Dobby's been withholding post with even more focus and strategy than Uncle Vernon over Harry's Hogwarts letter, it sort of is.


	25. Year Two: Diagon Alley

"Merlin's saggy ballsack, Harry," George exclaims.

"George!" Molly scolds him, but George ignores her completely, staring with Fred at Harry's box of letters. Harry doesn't even know where to start with it - he feels even better than he had at Christmas last year, with so many letters to reply to, different hand-writing his name on the envelopes and different sorts of twine tying the notes together.

"How do you organize it all?" Fred asks, looking horrified at all the post.

"I just keep it in a box at the moment," Harry admits, "I'm going to buy some files when I go into Diagon Alley this week. Is it still alright if I go with the Grangers on Friday, Mrs Weasley?"

"Oh, of course, dear," Mrs Weasley says, obviously trying not to show her relief at not leading Harry around Diagon Alley as well as everyone else. "And the rest of us will go on Sunday." Harry smiles at her, and he walks into the living room, sitting down on the floor with some parchment, his quills and some ink.

He starts with the tied notes, first. Two are from Hagrid asking how his summer's going, and the rest are just from people in his year. He picks out the three parcels, then: one of them is from Honeydukes for a packet of sugar quills he'd forgotten he'd ordered, and another is a new Slytherin scarf. The third one isn't something he'd ordered, though - it's a small, wooden box, and inside is a set of training snitches, nestled with a broom-polishing kit and a set of Seeker's gloves. Harry frowns at the contents, and then he picks out the letter attached.

 _Dear Mr Potter,_

 _You do not know us, but you do know our daughters, Padma_

 _and Parvati. Padma shared with us the details of what happened_

 _at Hogwarts during the first Quidditch match of the season. We_

 _have been informed as to how the stand began to crumble beneath_

 _you, and how you pushed her back, focusing on getting her to safety_

 _before you focused on yourself._

 _We were obviously grateful and relieved, and when Padma returned_

 _from Hogwarts this year and we went to Diagon Alley for her and_

 _Parvati's school things, she expressed the desire to buy something_

 _for you as a token of her gratitude._

 _Enclosed is a training Seeker's set - Parvati tells us you're quite the_

 _devil on a broom, Mr Potter, and while you may not wish to join your_

 _house team (so our daughters hope, lest you win Slytherin the cup),_

 _we hope you might enjoy their use._

 _Yours truly,_

 _Ajit & Rachna Patil_

Harry stares down at the page, utterly taken aback, and Percy comes into the room, peering down at him.

"What's wrong?" Harry wordlessly hands him the letter, and as Percy holds the parchment in his hands, reading through the neatly looping lines of script, Harry touches the three snitches in the box. One is half regulation size, and the other gets faster the closer the seeker gets to catching it. The third is a normal snitch, just like you'd use in a real Quidditch match.

"Oh, that's nice of them," Percy says, handing the letter back. "Have you got a broom?" he asks, pointing to the polishing kit, and Harry shakes his head.

"I thought I might get one this year," Percy nods his head approvingly, and he sits down on the sofa, picking up a book and making no more effort as to conversation. Harry sets the Patils' letter aside to reply to first, and then he begins to read through the letters in envelopes. He's distracted as he goes, though, and he keeps glancing back to the Seeker's kit, overwhelmed with gratitude.

He can't believe they'd been so nice.

* * *

"Now, just drop in the Floo powder and step into the flames. Make sure you speak clearly now, Harry," Mr Weasley coaches him. "We don't want you ending up in the French quarter of Dublin."

"Is that likely to happen?"

"Probably not, probably not-" Mr Weasley says hurriedly, and Harry shakes his head, throwing down the Floo powder before stepping into the green flames.

"The Leaky Cauldron!" Harry says loudly, and he keeps his elbows in just as Mr Weasley had told him, closing his eyes tightly until he stumbles out of the fireplace. He falls on the floor without any grace at all, his glasses flying over the tile, and he groans as Tom Darcy, the barman, picks them up.

"First time in the Floo, eh, Harry?" he asks lightly, and Harry nods his head, pulling himself up and taking his glasses back. "You'll get better at it. Want me to take a look at that graze?" Harry glances at his right arm, which he'd dragged over the floor on his way down, and sighs.

"Yeah, please, Tom," he says, and when the Grangers come into the pub, Harry is sat at the bar, holding his arm out and letting Tom rub a healing balm that knits the torn skin together, leaving it warm to the touch but intact.

"What did you do?" Hermione asks, concern obvious.

"Oh, he just fell getting out of the Floo, lass," Tom says, "Happens all the time." Tom assures her, and Harry smiles at him, getting down from the stool. "Have a good time."

"Thanks, Tom," Harry says, and with the Grangers, they move into Diagon Alley. They go to Gringotts first, and Harry gets some money out of his vault while the Grangers exchange some Muggle notes for Galleons. Rather than returning straight to the high street, the Grangers let Harry and Hermione lead them into some of the side streets, so they can go through some of the secondhand shops.

Harry is careful to read over the signs over the doors before they go into any of them: he doesn't want to end up going in a shop full of dark magic implements, but for the most part he's aware those shops are in Knockturn Alley, which they're careful to avoid.

Harry and Hermione spends much of the morning exploring the shops, picking up cheap books in their scores, and Harry even finds a few leather photo albums for his pictures. "Oh, Harry, look!" Hermione says at around eleven o'clock. Harry glances away from the enchanted letter box he'd been musing over, coming over. On the shelf, slightly battered but still in their boxes, are three complete sets of Gilderoy Lockhart's complete works.

"Excuse me," Hermione calls across the room, where a pretty older woman, Dawn, is talking with Mr and Mrs Granger, "How much are these?"

"4 knuts apiece," she replies easily, "10 for the three sets together."

"One for you, one for me, one as a present for Ginny?" Harry asks, and Hermione vigorously nods her head, picking up the three boxes and lugging them - not with too much ease - to the glass cashier desk. Harry peers at the letter box a few moments more, and then he picks it up. He sets it on the table, too, but then he stops short.

"Sorry," he asks, "Is that a Cleansweep Six?"

"Yeah," Dawn says, nodding her head and glancing at the broom for a moment before she picks it up, passing it over the desk for Harry to have a look at. "Still works just fine, of course - it's just a bit outdated." This seems to go completely over the Grangers' head, but Harry will explain it later, over lunch. The Cleansweep range is reliable, and even though it's probably a bit of money to spend, it is an investment.

Besides, it's not like he can spend all of his school money on the Nimbus 2001 he'd seen in the window of Quality Quidditch Supplies.

"How much?" Harry asks, and Dawn smiles at him. Harry smiles right back.

* * *

"Merlin's beard," Harry says as he stops outside of Flourish and Blotts as they exit, and Hermione glances at him quizzically, but he points at the sign tacked up to the inside of the glass, advertising Gilderoy Lockhart's book signing on Sunday.

"God," Hermione agrees, "7 Sickles for the whole set, and on sale. We got a really good deal."

"Not the price," Harry says impatiently, "He wrote me a letter."

"Lockhart did?" Hermione asks.

"Yeah. I didn't realize what his name was, to be honest - he has this big flowy signature, but it's that one," Harry says, jabbing his finger at the gold inked G. Lockhart signed on the portrait photo of Lockhart in the window.

"A famous author's writing you, Harry," Mr Weasley says, waggling his eyebrows, "You truly are reaching high places." Harry laughs, shaking his head, and he thinks about the letter Gilderoy Lockhart had sent him. "A famous author's writing you, Harry," Mr Weasley says, waggling his eyebrows, "You truly are reaching high places." Harry laughs, shaking his head, and he thinks about the letter Gilderoy Lockhart had sent him. Now he knows what the man's name is, he'll be able to reply.

The letter had been arrogant nonsense, of course, so he doesn't know if he wants to.


	26. Year Two: Chaos At King's Cross

_Dear Harry,_

 _I do hope I can call you Harry, can't I?_

Harry stares down at Lockhart's letter, lips twisting. It feels presumptuous and rude in a way that Harry can't quite define, but all of Lockhart's letters are written in a breezy, self-satisfied way that clearly imply who is, and should be, the centre of the universe.

 _I've heard you're quite the little letter-writer, and I_

 _thought I'd gift you with a letter of my own - perhaps_

 _you might keep this one, and look back on it fondly_

 _in a few years!_

 _In the coming year, I will be coming to teach Defence_

 _Against The Dark Arts at Hogwarts - do keep it under_

 _your hat, of course! - and I merely wanted to extend_

 _my most HUMBLE offer of tutelage in advance, should_

 _you like to take some benefit of my expertise._

 _I'm sure once you're all grown up, we might work in the_

 _same field, you and I - perhaps we might even do an_

 _interview together!_

 _Looking forward to meeting you,_

 _G. Lockhart._

At least, that is what Harry now knows the signature is meant to say: in actuality, it's an unrecognizable swirl of G and L, followed by a scribble that's supposed to be the missing "ockhart".

"I don't want to reply," he says, putting his forehead to the wood of the kitchen table and hoping irrationally that the letter will just go away. "It's so- it's such a weird letter to send, and he's obviously a tosser." Fred puts out his hand, and he and George read it together.

"Definite tosser," they agree together, and without any more pageantry, Fred scrunches up the piece of parchment and throws it in the fireplace. "If he asks, your post was stolen by a house elf, and you didn't get that one back," he suggests. Harry watches the parchment scrunch further, blackening at the edges, and it makes him feel better to see it burn.

"Yeah," George agrees. "Obviously Dobby was so desperate to touch something written by Gilderoy Lockhart he kept it, and he sleeps with as a bedsheet each night. Come on, get up, you lazy snake. Let's go play Quidditch."

"Us and you versus Percy, Ron and Ginny," Fred agrees, and Harry's decision is made up easily: he stoppers his ink bottle and pulls on his gloves to play.

"Are you sure we're all going to fit in a Ford Anglia, Mr Weasley?" Harry asks skeptically, and he pats Harry's back, giving him a wink.

"Oh, yes, Harry," he says, nodding his head, and he picks up Harry's trunk to put in the car first. Harry watches, fascinated, as Mr Weasley slides the trunk inside - the car is enchanted to have a ridiculous amount of space on the inside, and he grins. "Now, you're not to share about the car around school, alright? It's, ah, not strictly legal." Harry suppresses the urge to snicker.

"It's okay, Mr Weasley. I cover illegal stuff for Fred and George all the time."

"Oh, good," Arthur says, and then, "Wait, Harry, what-"

"I'll be right back, Mr Weasley!" Harry interrupts brightly, and he heads into the house. It's a little past half eight, and Ron and Percy are eating their breakfasts (with varying degrees of accuracy, judging by the red sauce on Ron's shirt collar) as everyone else runs back and forth. Treacle, the Weasley's ill-tempered tabby, is running around the house with a black jumper on, and Harry can only assume that it's Ginny's, given that she's in pursuit. Fred and George are on their hands and knees in front of the fireplace, both of their heads shoved into the flames as they talk loudly and quickly with someone on the other side.

In the midst of the chaos, Mrs Weasley leans against the kitchen side, drinking her tea and apparently doing her best to ignore everything going on around her. "Would you start taking everyone's trunks outside for me, Harry dear? Just leave Ginny's for now: she's trying to find her jumper." Harry watches as Treacle desperately flees upstairs, Ginny scrambling after her.

"Okay," Harry assents, and he drags Percy's trunk out to Mr Weasley.

"Come on, let's get onto the platform," Percy says briskly, adjusting his prefect badge where it stands proudly on his chest, pinned to a red jumper. He couldn't be more irritating in this moment than if he clapped his hands. "Ginny, you first."

"Yes, sir!" Ginny says, rolling her eyes, and she runs forwards, hitting the wall with a loud, harsh smack of sound. She lets out a cry of pain, and Percy and George run forwards, pulling her up. A graze bleeds a little on her left arm, and she'd hit her jaw hard as she'd fallen down, cutting the skin.

Muggles are glancing at Weasleys, and Harry sees Mr and Mrs Weasley share an uncertain look: they're a big family anyway, but given all their trunks and the owls they've got with them as well, they don't really look all that mundane. Arthur moves forwards as George and Percy pull Ginny towards Mrs Weasley. She's crying a little bit - not out of pain, Harry doesn't think, but just at the sudden shock of hitting the wall instead of passing through it.

Harry recognizes people coming into the station, some of them in clothes like the Weasleys are wearing, but others in full-on robes.

"Merlin's beard," Arthur whispers as he comes away from the wall between the two platforms. "Molly, we need to go."

"What? But we have to catch the express-"

"The enchantment on the wall's been dispelled," Arthur says, "Look, take your owls, and go outside. Percy, I need you to take the children to the Leaky Cauldron, and if you see other Hogwarts students as you go around, tell them to do the same. I need to go to the Ministry. Molly-"

"I'll stay here," she says, nodding her head, "And point people to the Leaky Cauldron. What do you think's going on here?"

"I don't know," Arthur admits, "But it's nothing good. Go on, Percy, take them now." Percy steps back, and all of them follow him, too surprised to do anything else. George carries Hermes, Percy's owl, and Harry holds Hedwig carefully as they walk on.

"Come on, now, there's hardly anything to worry about," Percy says briskly, but not convincingly. He talks quickly and quietly with the parents he sees as they move out of the station, and by the time they're walking through London it isn't just the six of them but Daphne Greengrass, looking as icy as ever, Francis Drummond, who seems to be hoping that fifth year is the year he ceases to exist, and Dean Thomas, who talks quietly and concernedly with Ron.

"Has this happened before?" Harry asks. Fred and George's faces are solemn, and they shake their heads.

"Dad said one time King's Cross was attacked, during the war, but everyone could still get to the platform and get on the train. What time is it, half-ten? Basically everyone would have been going in right now, so this is a proper mess," Fred says.

"Oi!" George says. "Lee!" A black boy lugging his trunk on one shoulder turns, and he sees them, waving. "Come here, you idiot!" Lee Jordan runs over, and Harry can't help but laugh a little at the picture of it, the way he holds his trunk so easily - the Muggles must all think it's empty.

"Daphne, you okay?" Harry asks, and she gives a small incline of her head.

"I could perhaps be better," she admits. "Given that I'm currently following the leadership of a Weasley." Harry decides not to respond to that, and they walk in silence until they get to the Leaky Cauldron - Percy ushers them all in, and one inside, he stops short, as if faced with his true nemesis.

"Prefect Lanjwani!"

"Prefect Weasley," Afifa returns, arching an eyebrow. "Slytherins, with me. Gryffindors, stay with Prefect Weasley. You, first year Weasley, you stay with your brother too." She turns back to Percy and says, "We're splitting into houses for the moment, and Mr Darcy's letting us all wait in an event room. I believe your father is currently spreading the word, but this is chaos, Weasley, I don't know what we're going to do to get to the school." Percy inhales, shaking his head.

"Is Penelope here?"

"Clearwater? Yeah, she's downstairs in the room. Come on." Afifa and Percy talk in a quiet, urgent tone: there's none of the usual house rivalry or jabbing back and forth, and that fills Harry with more trepidation than anything else. He sees Hermione sat on her trunk to the side of the room, and he comes over, sitting beside her.

They sit in silence for a long while - Harry doesn't want to speculate, not when there's a thick, worried ball in his belly and the clock is ticking towards eleven o'clock. When Afifa and Percy walk past them again, Harry catches their attention.

"Afifa?" Harry asks, and they both turn, looking down at him and Hermione.

"Yes?"

"They'll be able to get it fixed, won't they? We're still going to be able to catch the Express?" Afifa presses her lips together, glancing at Percy, who shakes his head.

"You've read _Hogwarts: A History_ , haven't you?" Percy asks, and Harry and Hermione nod their heads. "Do you recall the passage as to the safety of the Hogwarts Express? It leaves at its exact time, and can't be stopped or slowed. It leaves at its exact time, and can't be stopped or slowed from leaving the station. It can take emergency stops en route, but not here in London. Besides, there's no possible way Ministry workers can replace the enchantments to reach the platform whilst Muggles are using the station as usual - it would cause utter chaos."

"We'll still get you all to Hogwarts," Afifa says, "But it won't be on the train." Hermione drums her fingers on her own knees as they walk away.

"What's going on, do you think?" she asks Harry, and he shakes his head. The room is full of anxious Hogwarts students, each talking quietly with each other - no one is laughing or joking, and even Fred, George and Lee are settled to the very edge of the wall, talking very seriously to each other.

"Whatever it is," Harry says, "It can't be good."


	27. Year Two: The Lockhart Problem

"Quiet down!" says McGonagall as she enters the room, and the hush that spreads through the students gathered in the huge event room is sudden: almost immediately they're all turning to look uncertainly to Professor McGonagall, who looks like she's had a difficult day so far. It's nearing twelve o'clock, and most of them are all sat down on the floor or on top of their trunks, talking together. "Ministry workers are currently restoring the wall at King's Cross - you've missed the train, but you'll be able to catch it next year."

"How are we going to get to school this year?"

"Five points from Gryffindor, Mr Jordan."

"We're not even there yet!"

"Ten points." Lee Jordan dramatically gasps, looking more indignant than honestly offended. "To answer Mr Jordan's question, we're currently awaiting a license for Professor Flitwick to create portkeys for you to reach the castle."

"Why can't we just Apparate to Hogsmeade?" asks a seventh year Ravenclaw.

"Those of you with Apparition licenses may Apparate to Hogsmeade, if you so choose, but we cannot sidealong Apparate with so many people in so short a time. Moreover," McGonagall says, cutting through the next expected interruption, "There are only a few fireplaces connected to the Floo Network, and as all four of them are in the private quarters of Hogwarts staff members, none of them will be used."

"Are you sure? I'd like to see Snape's bedroom!" George says, making people laugh around the room.

"Professor Snape," McGonagall says loudly, "Does not have a Floo connection, Mr Weasley, but I will pass on your regards." There are a few scattered laughs around the room, but her momentary good humour fades away, and McGonagall glances around the room, her expression sober. "First years will still experience their traditional arrival by boat, and the coaches will be waiting for the rest of you at the Hogwarts gates, once you make your way in. The Hogwarts house elves will be bringing you your lunch soon. If all prefects could come forwards and tell me which students are missing from the register."

Harry sighs, rubbing at his eyes. He and Hermione sit together on her trunk, cross-legged and back to back, and Harry can feel the thick cushion of her hair against the back of his neck. Beside them, Hedwig perches on top of her cage. Harry had let her out an hour ago, but she'd elected to stay rather than flying onto the castle.

"Do you think I'll ever get to have a normal year at school?" Hermione asks.

"Not as long as you're friends with me," Harry promises, and she laughs a little. "I wonder if Mr Weasley got all our trunks to the school yet."

"Probably. But it's not like we can commandeer the Knight Bus for the morning."

"Why not?" Harry asks.

"Because, Harry," Hermione says, "We're in the wizarding world now. Besides, they did that before for a big Ministry event, didn't they? It was in Ministerial Insight, and instead of going to London they ended up in the middle of the Irish Sea." Harry thinks of the spotty, stupid conductor he'd met on the Knight Bus. It makes complete sense, even if he doesn't remember the particular part in the book.

* * *

Harry groans as he lets go of the portkey, and Theodore Nott pats his back as they pass the used portkey to Hagrid, who is collecting them all in a wide, wicker basket. Harry's navel feels like it's approximately six feet away from his body right now, and it's not at all a pleasant sensation.

The portkeys had been organized for groups of no more than five, and Harry had gone with Theodore, Blaise, Crabbe and Goyle.

"They're not my favourite either," Nott says lightly, and Harry breathes in, standing up straight. The sensation soon fades, and Harry shakes his head, glancing around for the carriages, but then he stops short as he watches a girl appear with some other Ravenclaws, laughing. She tosses back her hair, which is black and glossy, and Harry finds himself stopped short, staring at her.

"Uh, Harry?" Blaise prompts, and Harry tears his gaze away, feeling the same strange twinge he had when he'd seen Percy shirtless at the Burrow.

"Who's that girl? The Ravenclaw?" Blaise rolls his eyes, and Theodore shakes his head, shoving Harry towards the carriages.

"That's Cho Chang, you idiot. She's the Seeker for the Ravenclaw team."

"She's pretty," Harry says awkwardly as he climbs into the carriage, and the other two boys shake their heads exasperatedly as Crabbe and Goyle pull themselves up too. "Don't you think?"

"Sure," Blaise says, "But none of us are staring at her with our mouths wide open like a peasant looking upon a noblewoman of old."

* * *

When they arrive in the castle, it's four o'clock, and there are about thirty students on the Hogwarts Express for the rest of them to wait for. After changing into his robes, Harry makes his way towards the staircases to go and find Hermione, but is stopped short with a loud, joyous, "Harry!"

Harry turns his head, staring in honest disbelief at the man before him. Gilderoy Lockhart is a little under six feet, his blond hair styled into a boyish set of curls that don't really suit him; his teeth are whiter than ivory, and he wears a positively luminescent set of bright purple robes, their lining made of an extravagant pink.

"Sorry, sir," Harry says hurriedly, "I'm not Harry, I-"

"Nonsense!" Lockhart proclaims delightedly, clapping Harry on the back. "So good to finally meet you, young man! I sent you a letter, of course, but no doubt you were too shy to respond."

"Uh, no," Harry says, "A lot of my post was nicked over the summer. I guess I never got it."

"Ah, no trouble, no trouble - you see, Harry, I merely wished to offer you a position as my mentee, my protegé, if you will," Lockhart says flamboyantly, tossing his hair.

"I'll have to think about it," Harry says, and before Lockhart can say anything else he runs into the next room, making his way as quickly as he can up to the Fat Lady to ask for Hermione.

* * *

"Well," Harry says as he drops face-first onto his bed, half-heartedly kicking off his shoes. "That was a disaster."

"It didn't go well, did it?" Draco agrees, untying the fastenings of his robes as frowning deeply. "Who do you think was behind the thing at the train station?"

"Don't know. Seems a bit low-key for Voldemort."

"Harry!" Draco hisses.

"Sorry, sorry. Seems a bit low-key for You-Know-You," Harry corrects himself, feeling more than silly. Hermione won't say the name herself, but at least she doesn't flinch every time he says it. "Maybe it was people protesting the use of a Muggle railway station? I don't know, it just seems random." Dumbledore had reiterated that the platform would be just fine next year, and that the Hogwarts Express had ran just fine, but he had just said some unknown party had caused the trouble, and that the Ministry was searching for the culprit. "They must have been powerful."

"Yeah," Draco agrees, pulling on his pyjama top as Harry begins to change into his own night clothes. "That'll probably be the end of it, though. It's not like they killed anyone."

"That doesn't mean they didn't mean to," Harry replies darkly, and he brushes the spine of Catastrophes of the Recent Past, which he'd unpacked with the rest of his books earlier that afternoon. It's one of the books Athene Greengrass had sent him vouchers for last year, and he thinks he'll re-read a little of it tonight. He's read most of Lockhart's books, which are vapid but simply written, and he doesn't want to subject himself to the last two just yet. "D'you think he'll be a good teacher? Lockhart?"

"My parents think he's useless," Draco answers, shrugging his shoulders, "But Father still sponsored his appearance at Flourish and Blotts."

"That's about money," Harry says, "Why would Lucius let him come to Hogwarts if he thinks he'll be useless?" Harry asks, setting his shoes under the bed.

"He's a governor, Harry, not a God."

"Tell him that," Harry retorts, and Draco throws a pillow at him, making Harry laugh as he catches it.

"It's hard to get Defence Against The Dark Arts teachers here," Draco says, "They say the position's jinxed." He puts out his hands and catches his pillow as Harry throws it back. "Maybe he's hoping Lockhart will get killed."

"You don't sell the cash cow for beef, Draco," Harry replies. Draco stares at him.

"What?" Harry laughs, lying down on the bed. "I wish you wouldn't use all these ridiculous expressions."

"Good night, Draco," Harry says, blowing out his candle. "Don't let the bed bugs bite."

Draco's pillow, this time, hits him in the back of the head, and Harry refuses to give it back.


	28. Year Two: Snakes and Whispers

"I know he's a bit, well, arrogant, but look at all the things he did in his books!" Hermione says, looking absently at the animated image of Gilderoy Lockhart on the cover of Magical Me, which she'd apparently ordered by owl. The collected sets they'd bought hadn't included the autobiography, a new publication, and frankly, Harry is glad. If he owned a copy, he'd feel obligated to read it.

"He hasn't taught us anything yet, though," Harry maintains, "And he's so self-centred. Hermione. If Professor McGonagall set a bloody test asking us her favourite colour and what sort of knickers she likes, we'd be out in a second."

"He never asked us what sort of knickers he likes," Hermione argues, looking horrified at the very thought, "That's not fair."

"You just think he's attractive, that's the only reason-"

"That's not the only reason!"

"It's the only reason! You see his lovely hair and his pretty face and you just swoon-"

"I've never swooned in my life, Harry, and I'm not about to-" There's a quiet cough, and Hermione and Harry irritably turn around. Draco has his hands in his pockets, and is looking casually at the both of them. If he wanted to look any more innocent, he'd probably start whistling, and Harry glares at him. Even if Draco isn't showing it, it's obvious he's amused at having found Harry and Hermione arguing about something.

"Sorry to interrupt your heated discussion," Draco says in an oily voice, "But I want some help with the Lockhart homework."

"Define help," Hermione says, raising her eyebrows and crossing her arms over her chest.

"I want the answers," Draco says, and Hermione tuts at him.

"I'm not going to help you cheat," she says disapprovingly, shaking her head, but Harry considers this, leaning his elbow on the table and looking at Draco thoughtfully. If it were usual homework help, Harry would just help him out, but giving Draco the answers to Lockhart's new test won't stop him from learning anything important, and taking into account that none of the teachers will punish him for telling Draco Lockhart's favourite colour...

"I will," Harry says, "But if I tell you what the answers are - just what the answers are, mind, I'm not going to highlight the passages in your books for you - you have to teach me something." Draco arches an eyebrow, and Hermione glances between them.

"Your house is very strange," she says, "I hope you realize that." Harry sighs.

"The Ravenclaws do this too, Hermione. It's not our fault Gryffindors have no concept of the quid pro quo." Hermione snorts, and she looks between them, expectant as Draco seems to think of what sort of knowledge he can offer in return. Then, he reaches into his inside pocket, pulling out the notebook he uses for his spells, and then he leans over, taking a piece of parchment and copying out some wand diagrams and some spell instructions. His notebook is then returned to his inner pocket.

Harry and Hermione both lean over, looking at the paper curiously. "Snake Summons? That sounds like high-level transfiguration."

"I can do it," Draco says defensively, "And this counts as knowledge."

"Prove it works," Harry says, and Draco stares at him. Harry, in truth, believes that Draco can cast the spell, or he wouldn't have copied it out from his little book for Harry and Hermione - he's not stupid, and he wouldn't try and pass off a spell as real without it being so. But Draco didn't know this spell at the end of last year, which means he must have learned it over the summer, and he wouldn't cast a spell for the first time in mixed company.

"What?" Draco says, indignant.

"Prove you can do the spell, and that it works, and I'll give you the answers."

"For Merlin's sake, Potter-" Draco pulls out his wand, and Harry's suspicions ae confirmed: Draco does cast magic at home, likely with his parents' tutelage. It doesn't really surprise him, but it's nice information to file away. "Serpensortia!" Harry watches Draco's wand movement as he casts the spell, and then he watches the burst of yellow light from the end of the wand as the snake bursts forwards.

In hindsight, this was probably a bad spell to request he perform in the middle of the Great Hall.

"What the Hell are you doing over there?" comes a sharp reproach from the other side of the room, and Draco, Hermione and Harry hurriedly stand on top of the Great Hall's bench as they stare down at the snake. It's perhaps three feet long, and it looks a bit angry about its situation. Francois Richelieu runs over, and he stops about six feet away, staring at the serpent, which is now coiling in on itself, raising its head and looking threateningly around the room. The Gryffindors further up the table begin to inch away. "Do you know the spell to Vanish it?" Frank asks Draco, and after a short pause, Draco rapidly, mutely, shakes his head.

Frank calls for one of the Ravenclaw prefects to run and get a teacher, and Harry focuses on the snake. Its head is weaving from side to the other, its tongue darting from its mouth every few seconds, and Harry doesn't think he's imagining it when he hears it say, _**"Where?**_ "

 _"This is Hogwarts,"_ Harry whispers back, barely aware of the way he draws out the sibilance in the words, and the snake turns to stare at him with its small, amber eyes. _"Can you talk?"_

 _"Of course I can talk,"_ the snake says loftily, _"We are not as_ _ **dim-witted**_ _as you upright pigs."_ Harry's never been called an upright pig before: the insult strikes him as slightly ill-suited.

 _"Uh, can you, you know? Leave?"_

 _"I was_ _ **summoned**_ _here."_

 _"Yes, but it's much nicer outside. There are mice, rats-"_

 ** _"Rats?"_** repeats the snake, tilting its head to the side and seeming pleased at the idea, _"Take me there._ "

 _"Can't you just, you know, go yourself? It's just out of that door and then through the next one."_

 _"No,_ " it says petulantly, _"Too far._ " Frank, Hermione and Draco are all staring at Harry as he very slowly, very cautiously, steps off the bench. Harry creeps forwards, making his way closer to the snake.

"Potter!" hisses Francois, "What do you think you're doing? That's an adder!"

"It's fine!" Harry says quickly, and he kneels down, putting out his arms, "If you bite me, I'm going to drop you in the lake," he promises, and the snake nods its head in a gesture of assent, slithering forwards and coiling itself slowly around the length of Harry's arm. Harry doesn't feel scared any more: he likes snakes, and this one isn't quite as intimidating now he has it in his hands.

Harry walks quickly into the entrance hall and outside, leaning down to let the snake drop itself into the nearby bushes, and the snake doesn't so much as thank him as it disappears into the underbrush. Harry makes his way back into the Great Hall, and everyone in the room seems to be staring at him. There are maybe twenty students dotted along each of the tables, and Frank comes forwards, grabbing Harry by the collar and hauling him into the entrance hall again. Draco runs to follow them, holding both his own bag and Harry's.

"What? I couldn't just bloody leave it there, could I?"

"You spoke to it," Frank says, pulling him bodily down the corridor, and Harry tries to pull away from the older boy's grip, but Francois keeps tight hold of him.

"So? What else was I meant to bloody do?" The prefect holds tightly to the scruff of Harry's neck as he makes his way towards the potions classroom. Mercifully, Snape's classroom is currently empty, and the man himself is in his office, making disparaging comments in red ink on the essays stacked before him.

"Professor Snape," Francois says, and the potions master glances up, arching an eyebrow as he glances from Harry to Draco.

"What now?" he asks, curling a lip in disgust.

"Potter's just released an adder onto the grounds," Francois says. Snape stares at Harry, black eyes boring into Harry's own.

"I couldn't leave it in the Great Hall!" Harry says as a defence of himself.

"Why, Potter, was there an adder in the Great Hall?"

"Draco summoned it." Snape's gaze flickers to Draco, who shrinks slightly under his Head of House's gaze.

"Because Potter told me to!"

"Would you jump off a bridge if I told you to?"

"Shut up, both of you!" Francois says loudly, finally letting Harry go. "But the reason I brought Potter here is because he's a Parselmouth." Snape's expression changes just slightly, and he frowns at Harry.

"I'm not a Parselmouth," Harry says, "I'm not Slytherin's heir or something, am I?"

"Did you speak to the snake, Potter?" Snape asks briskly.

"Of course I did. How do you think I convinced it not to bite me?" Snape breathes in, and then he pinches the bridge of his nose, looking like he's doing his level best to remain calm.

"Potter," Snape says finally, in a low, even tone. "If you were speaking to the snake, and it understood you, you were speaking Parseltongue."

"I was speaking English!"

"No, Potter, you weren't," Francois says, and Harry stares up at him. "From what we know of Parseltongue, it's not like Draco and I speaking French. You might have heard yourself and the snake speaking in English, but all the rest of us heard were you hissing back and forth." Harry is silent, staring into the middle distance. He'd read the history of Salazar Slytherin, about the mythical Chamber of Secrets and about how he could supposedly speak to snakes, but...

"Five points from Slytherin for performing dangerous magic in the halls without supervision, Mr Malfoy."

"Aren't you going to do anything, sir?" Francois asks, and Snape stares at him, seeming mildly taken aback by the question.

"Do anything?" he repeats.

"About Potter."

"What is it you suggest I do, Prefect Richelieu? Gag the boy? Banish every snake from the castle? Call in the press?" Frank falters, and Snape returns to his desk, sitting down once more and dipping his quill in his pot of red ink. There's a pause as the three of them stand in the doorway, staring at their head of house, and after a few moments, Snape glances up at them, "Get out."

* * *

"Is this bad?" Harry asks quietly once they get into the common room, and Malfoy lingers to hear Frank's response. Francois had looked worried all the way back to the Common Room, and now he looks at Harry seriously before he sighs.

"It will be all over the school that you were involved in the summoning of a snake, and that you then talked to it. Parseltongue is an exceedingly rare skill, Harry, and virtually all Parselmouths are descended from Slytherin: people think of Parselmouths as dark magic practitioners as soon as they know what they are."

"It'll be all over the school by now," Harry says, and Frank nods his head, patting Harry's shoulder.

"Stay in here for now, okay? We'll see how the rest of the houses are at dinner, and then we can respond from there." Harry goes into the common room proper, and, seeing Harry's pale features as he walks past, he hears the other Slytherins ask Frank what happened. Harry stays in his dorm for a little while, taking the time to unpack the books and clothes from his trunk he hadn't yet done, and then he walks out into the common room again.

"Oh, cheer up, Potter," Blaise Zabini says as soon as he comes in, throwing an arm around his shoulders. "Maybe you sound smarter in Parseltongue."

"Shut up!" Harry says immediately, shoving the other boy, but by no means is the ribbing upsetting: it's actually comforting that Blaise is still making fun of him, even when it's about this.

"Come on, then," Theodore says, "You can't discover you're a Parselmouth and not demonstrate for us."

"He's right, you know," says Daphne Greengrass, "We'd just be terribly upset if you were to deny us a little whimsy."

"I didn't know whimsy was your thing, Daphne," Harry says, and she gives a little shrug of her shoulders, tossing her hair. "I don't think I can do it without looking at a snake - I've done it before. I set a boa constrictor on my cousin once."

"Well, he's just gone up rather a lot in my estimation," Blaise says in a light, conversational tone, "Nothing like snake-based attempted murder to bolster one's friendship."

"I didn't try and kill him," Harry says, pushing the other boy to sit down as he drops onto the arm of one of the green, leather sofas in front of the fireplace. "I just scared him a bit." He glances around for a good likeness of a snake in the common room, of which there are a fair few, and he settles on the Slytherin crest mounted over the nearest fireplace. The snake is carefully painted on the wood of the shield, and Harry focuses it on it, imagining its coil moving and shifting as he looks at it. " _This is me speaking Parseltongue,_ " he says, and the Slytherins around him each laugh and "ooh", nudging each other. Harry knows there are other people dotted around the common room craning their necks and straining their ears to listen, but for the time being he ignores them.

That is, until there's a quiet grind from the wall, and a large piece of stone beside the fireplace slides to the right, disappearing into the wall beside the chimney flue: a dark passageway is left open, letting cold air draught into the room, and the six of them stare, wide-eyed, at the opening.

"Go get Professor Snape, Blaise," says Afifa, coming up and putting her hands on Harry's shoulders, keeping him in his place on the sofa. Blaise all but scrambles towards the common room exit as the other Slytherins begin to gather around, all of them leaning to try and stare into the new hall that's opened up. It's dark, but Harry thinks he can see unlit torches lining its walls. "What did you say, Potter?"

"Nothing. Nothing, I just said that I was speaking Parseltongue, it was just so they could hear-"

"Shush," Afifa says sharply, squeezing his shoulder. "It's fine. They find secret rooms all the time."

"When was the last time someone found an official secret room?" Harry asks, glancing up at Afifa. Other Slytherins lean to watch her face, and Afifa breathes in. There's a short pause.

"Shut up, Potter."

"Yes, Ma'am."


	29. Year Two: The Empty Library

Snape comes into the common room with Blaise a few minutes later, and he tells the prefects to help him move the sofas closest to the new entrance out of the way, forcing the students back a little. "Come away from this part of the common room, if you will," Snape orders briskly, and the Slytherins move back by about two feet, but as soon as Snape turns to glance into the little hall, all of the students step back to where they were before.

He doesn't bother to correct them.

The Slytherin entrance opens once more, and Harry glances at McGonagall and Dumbledore as they enter the common room, the both of them looking rather harried. Despite McGonagall's Gryffindor house, Harry can't help but think that in her deep green robes and similar hat, she matches the Slytherin common room's colour scheme perfectly. He wouldn't be stupid enough to say so, of course, but he's allowed to think it.

"Incendio," Dumbledore casts quietly, lighting the torches on the inside of the little corridor, but Harry can only see two torches in the little hall before it takes a sharp left turn: without actually sticking his head into the hall, he can't see what it leads into.

The Slytherins reluctantly move to sit down around the common room as the three teachers disappear into the new room. Homework lies uncompleted on tables, students pretending to work on it as they listen carefully for whatever sound they can glean from the quiet echoes of McGonagall's voice; more than a few of them curse Snape and Dumbledore's respective tendency to speak in barely more than a whisper.

Harry sits with Afifa and some of the other seventh years, and while they're making an attempt to talk about a new shop opening on an offshoot of Diagon Alley, one with a 17+ ageline on its entranceway. Harry would normally want to find out anything he could about a shop like that, but for the time being he's as distracted as the seventh years are.

When Dumbledore finally comes out of the room, followed by McGonagall and Snape, the Slytherins are all on the edges of their seats, leaning right forwards and watching Dumbledore in the most rapt silence he's likely ever heard from Slytherin house.

"Now then," Dumbledore says pleasantly, putting his hands together, "I believe it is time for us to go to the great hall for dinner, children."

"But, Professor," Afifa says, "What is it?"

"Time for dinner," Dumbledore repeats in a surprisingly kind and grandfatherly tone, given the number of eyes boring into him. The Slytherins mill about in their places, making their reluctance known.

"Go," orders Snape, and they each move towards the door. It would normally be proper etiquette to allow staff to lead the students from the common room, but McGonagall and Snape purposefully hang back, presumably to make sure no one tries to stay in the common room and come to dinner late. Harry moves along with the other Slytherins, and he waves to Hermione as he comes into the hall.

"Are you okay?" she mouths at him, furrowing her brow.

"Yeah. No detention," Harry mouths back, and she looks surprised, but gives him a thumbs up before she turns back to her conversation with Parvati Patil and Lavender Brown. Judging by their expressions, Hermione is enjoying it more than they are - Harry guesses they started out talking about Lockhart, and that Hermione got off track talking about actual defence against the dark arts.

"Excuse me!" says a voice behind him, and Harry turns, glancing down at the younger boy. His robes are a little overlarge for him, partly because he's so skinny, Harry suspects, and the little Gryffindor is wide-eyed and looking up at Harry. "Aren't you Harry Potter?"

"No," Harry lies, "I'm Draco - Harry's over there-"

"No, no, you're Harry Potter, I can see your scar!" he says excitedly, and it's only now that Harry sees the camera around Colin's neck. "Is it true that you're a Parselmouth? Does your scar ever hurt? Could I get your autograph? Do-"

"What's your name?" Harry asks loudly, cutting through the other boy's nonsense, and the kid stares up at him.

"Colin! Colin Creevey!"

"Go sit down, Colin," Harry says.

"But-"

"No. You want to talk to me, you don't do it at dinner," Harry says clearly, and he turns around, sitting beside Blaise and adjusting his collar, feeling more than a little bit uncomfortable. Creevey's only a year younger than him, but the awe he'd been directing at Harry had been... Uncomfortable. He scurries off to the Gryffindor table, sitting with some of his first year friends, and Harry shakes his head.

"I thought you liked attention," Theodore says in a teasing tone, nudging him, and Harry shakes his head, pressing his lips together.

"Attention's fine, but I want friends and allies, Theodore. What sort of idiot wants blind followers?" There's an uncomfortable silence, and Harry realizes the unfortunate nature of his phrasing all at once, a thick, sick feeling sinking down and into his stomach. For once, he's grateful when Dumbledore starts to talk.

"Eat, everyone. The next few days will be interesting for you." With that cryptic message, Dumbledore sits down, and food appears on the table. Harry eats in mostly silence, listening to the other second years theorize as to the new room; there's quiet talk all up and down the Slytherin table, and it's a nice distraction. Whenever Harry glances back towards the other house tables he can see groups of students watching him and whispering about him, whispering about how he's a Parselmouth.

And that's without even knowing what he'd unlocked in the common room.

* * *

"Oh," Harry whispers as Afifa pushes him forwards and into the room.

It's a broad room with eight neat, symmetrical walls, and the octagon is continued in the ceiling, where eight sheets of black glass are drawn into a centrepiece. The glass shines in the light from the torches that have now been lit, reflecting it down again. It's a modest library, with four of its walls holding floor-to-ceiling shelves, and in the middle of the room is another torch, four shelves spanning out from it in a plus sign.

The shelves are only three feet high, and along their surface is a thick layer of dust, but not a single one of the shelves around them is holding a book. The only piece of furniture is the library's central desk, upon which is a large, leather-bound book not dissimilar to the one in the main library. Harry looks at it, turning one of the pages, but the parchment is utterly blank: it's not like Mrs Pince's book, which has dozens of library books listed on each page.

"It's empty," Harry says, and a seventh year pats his back.

"Cheer up," he says lightly, "It won't be for long."

"What do you mean?" Harry asks, and the boy laughs. Alexi, Harry thinks his name is.

"Do you truly think, Potter, that a library adjoining our common room is going to go unused?" The boy gives him a little grin and Harry smiles a little, heading to the dormitories for bed. He pulls down his copy of Dastardly Defences, beginning to study the Pimple Jinx.

Draco mumbles a "goodnight" to him, crawling under his covers and pressing his face into the pillows. Harry smiles at the green and blond lump in the next bed, shaking his head, and looks back to his book, dimming the candle on his side of the bed and pulling the curtains on the right side of his bed. The curtains of their beds are thick, and they block most of the light.

Not that Draco would actually notice.

Harry is almost entirely certain Draco could sleep through several explosions if he had a thick enough blanket: for someone so incredibly focused on his own dignity in day-to-day life, Draco's sleeping positions are usually the furthest from dignity one could get.

Harry reads for an hour or so, but when he sets the book aside, he isn't actually ready to go to sleep yet: he shifts on the bed, and then he slides slowly forwards, pulling his invisibility cloak out of the bottom of his trunk. Draco is quietly snoring, the sound nearly entirely muffled by the pillows around his head, and one of his legs sticks haphazardly out from under the bedsheet. Harry really needs to buy himself a camera.

He slips the cloak on over his head, creeping down the corridor and out into the common room. The Slytherin prefects are gathered around one of the tables, discussing who would be willing to donate books to the Slytherin library and which books they ought try hardest to get hold of. Harry leans forwards, looking at the plans: Francis Drummond, a prefect as of this year, has made a rough sketch of the library's plan, and has pencilled in new furniture to be added over the holidays.

Harry can't help but smile as he creeps towards the new little hall off the corridor.

The library's torches have been extinguished, so once Harry is safely in the room he whispers, "Lumos," and pulls the cloak off. The desk, carved of mahogany, is a beautiful piece of furniture: each of the legs is carved to resemble tentacles coiling together as they reach down to the ground, and he can't help but think it's a bit incongruous with the usual serpentine image, but that doesn't mean it's not well done.

Harry crouches at the desk, leaning down and carefully pulling open one of its drawers. As expected, it's empty, but when he pulls the second drawer forwards there's a flutter of parchment coming loose, and he frowns, leaning to watch as it drops onto the ground.

Dumbledore must have missed it earlier, and Harry guesses it was caught in the mechanism at the back of one of the drawers, so he sits back, cross-legged, and looks at it. The parchment is old, and on one side the page is filled with notes on a spell Harry doesn't recognize, but the other is full of sketches. These aren't the rough, procedural drawings he'd just seen Francis Drummond scribble to get an approximation for a room's size, though: these are done in careful pencil, showing a snake wrapping itself around a dagger, a skull made into an inkpot with a quill sticking out of it, a snake's face split in two, displaying the skull under the flayed-off scales...

In a curiously morbid way, the drawings are beautiful, and Harry doesn't want to leave them to be thrown away when the desk is next moved around: without a second thought, he folds the parchment neatly and puts it into his pocket, hiding himself under the cloak again to return to bed.

He doesn't know what it means that he's a Parselmouth, and he sees no reason it should put people into such a frenzy, but he decides, as he slips the old sketches into his letter organiser, that he shouldn't resent it. Theodore has one of the quotes from A Serpentine History on a plaque in his and Blaise's room: To reject a path towards a skill is preference; to reject a talent one possesses innately is stupidity.

Harry slides into bed, putting his head on the pillow, and he closes his eyes.

Being a Parselmouth is the easy part, he thinks. It's keeping Lockhart from talking about it that's going to be hard.


	30. Year Two: Historical Significance

Harry makes his way down to breakfast with Blaise and Theodore the next day, and Harry tells them (without mentioning the cloak, of course) what he'd heard the prefects planning the night before. Theodore nods his head in obvious approval, liking the idea of having a library immediately to hand.

"Do you think it will have the same restrictions to content as the main library?" Blaise asks thoughtfully, "Draco's father has been trying to have some texts added to it for years now."

"It depends on if Dumbledore is in charge of overseeing the list, or if Snape is," Theodore replies, frowning slightly. "I don't think there's much of a loophole there, though."

"Good," Harry says, "I looked up some of the books he's mentioned, and no one needs books like that in a school. If people so desperately want to read some fantasy story about how Muggleborns are the end of the society, they can buy their own copy." Blaise frowns at him.

"They're just facts, Harry," he says, and Harry sniggers, shaking his head. He doesn't even bother to start the argument this early in the morning; he's not really willing to entertain anything that says Jon and Peggy Granger are any kind of threat to the wizarding way of life. Besides, his mum was Muggleborn.

"Yeah, Blaise, sure they are," he says sarcastically: Blaise's lips purse, his eyes narrowing in obvious anger, and he gets ready to argue, but they stop short just before entering the entrance hall. There are two wizards in deep, purple robes, and beside them Harry sees a photographer, looking at the film in his camera. "What the Hell are they doing here?"

"You discovered a secret library that might have been built by Salazar Slytherin himself, and you're surprised the press is going to report on it?" Theodore asks, and Harry groans. He hurries towards the great hall, just wanting to get in and have breakfast, but a hand grabs tightly on the collar of his robes.

"Harry!" Lockhart proclaims, pulling him around. The reporters latch eyes on him, and Harry tries to pull himself free as they come forwards. "Why don't we have a photo together for the Prophet?" The photographer is raising his camera, so Harry stamps down hard on the toe of one of Lockhart's pretentious two-tone shoes, and Lockhart lets Harry go as he cries out. Harry runs into the great hall, moving to sit down between Hermione and Parvati Patil at the Gryffindor table.

"Got confused, did you?" Parvati asks.

"There are reporters that want to take photos of me," Harry says, and Parvati stares at him perplexedly, obviously not understanding why he'd want to avoid that sort of press attention. "Right, Hermione- You've heard how I'm a Parselmouth?"

"Percy was explaining it this morning," Hermione explains, nodding her head. "That's so interesting, Harry, you know there hasn't been a known Parselmouth at Hogwarts since-" Harry feels that if he lets Hermione continue this train of thought, it will be difficult to get any words in edgeways, so he simple talks over her.

"I found a secret library in the Slytherin common room." Hermione's mouth freezes mid-infodump, and she stares at Harry, looking as if four birthdays, two Christmases and Flourish and Blotts' mid-February sale have come all at once.

"Oh my God!"

"There aren't any books in it," he tells her quickly, and her face falls.

"Oh," she says, less excitedly, "But you found a secret library?" Harry explains as they begin to eat, and for the most part the Gryffindors just ignore him - occasionally, Colin Creevey will crane his neck to try to catch Harry's eye, but Harry does his best to ignore it.

"Hi, Harry," Ginny says brightly as she comes down to the table, and Harry smiles at her. "Did you make the right decision and swap houses?"

"Oh, damn, sorry, I meant to sit at the Ravenclaw table-" Hermione snorts, shoving Harry in the side, and Ginny lets out a little laugh, moving to sit with Creevey and some of the other first years further up the table. Now she's settled in at Hogwarts, Ginny seems much more confident and happy: most importantly, she no longer looks at Harry like he's some sort of mythical being that just walked out of the lake.

"She's doing pretty well," Hermione says, seeming to guess Harry's train of thought, and Harry nods his head. "She keeps messing about with the twins, teasing Percy - she's really enjoying it here, and she's even learned a few jinxes." Harry pokes at what remains of his scrambled eggs with his fork, settling into silence as he waits for Hermione to finish her cereal.

No reporters show themselves as they split up for History of Magic and Charms, and Harry forgets about them entirely by the time he and Hermione walk across the grass and settle down on a blanket. The grass is wet with dew, and even though the wind is a little biting, the sun is out and shining warmly on them. Professor Flitwick had told them there'd likely be snow tomorrow, but for the time being the sky is mostly clear.

"Serpensortia," Harry whispers, putting his wand forwards. Nothing happens. Hermione frowns.

"I think it's more like this," she says, and she sweeps her own hand forwards, "Serpensortia!" Her wand lets out a little hiss, but no snake bursts forth.

Harry flicks his wrist a little more: "Serpensortia!" The "snake" that flops forwards is blue, utterly limp, and rubbery. Harry picks it up, feeling it flop in his hands, and Hermione starts to laugh. He hits her with it, and she shoves him away from her, letting out a horrified noise at the thing's damp, gel-like surface and its texture: he lets out a laugh of his own, and then he turns, throwing the thing as hard as he can down the hill into the bushes.

Scandalized, Hermione puts her hand over her mouth, and Harry tries to cast the spell again.

* * *

Harry stares down at the photo of him and Hermione laughing together in the paper, lips twisted into a scowl. It's the new morning edition, and the animation shows Hermione and Harry laughing together: it's a nice photo, actually, and Harry's going to cut it out and keep it, but... He hates that it's in the paper. He hates that it's presented next to a photo captioned, Harry Potter's favoured mentor, Gilderoy Lockhart. He hates the whole tone of the article, which acts like he's done some phenomenally difficult thing by hissing in front of a doorway he didn't even know was there.

"It's a nice photo of you and Granger, at least," Theodore says, reading the irritation on Harry's face, and Harry nods his head. "You mastered that spell to cut things yet?"

"Nope," Harry replies, "Would you?"

"Sure," he says, taking the paper, and Harry watches the movement of his hands carefully as he trims around the edge of the photo, pulling it away from the paper. Harry takes it, folding it into his bag, and the paper itself he abandons on the table as he exits the room and makes his way up the stairs towards Transfiguration.

When he arrives at the classroom, McGonagall and Snape are talking outside of the door, and Harry hovers in the corridor, glancing between them. Snape gestures, silently, for Harry to follow him, and Harry sighs, reluctantly following his head of house down the stairs again. There's no sense in arguing, he's sure, and when Snape leads him to a gargoyle on the second floor.

"Liquorice All-Sorts," Snape bites out, and Harry furrows his brow at the strange password as the gargoyle leaps aside to let them upstairs.

"Liquorice All-Sorts?" he repeats. "What, does he like those?"

"Last month," Snape says despairingly, "It was Disco Discs."

"What's a Disco Disc?" Harry asks. It sounds like the sort of drug that centres in soap dramas in Muggle TV.

Snape arches an eyebrow, glancing at him, and then says, "It's the wrong name for a Dazzle Drop." Harry blinks at him, wondering what the Hell a Dazzle Drop is. They reach the top of the stairs, and Harry looks curiously around the room they enter as Snape walks forwards and towards the desk.

"Ah, Harry, you're here," Dumbledore says, standing from behind his desk as Snape sinks down into a chair, lips pressed together. He looks really annoyed, and Harry glances from him to Dumbledore, unsure of what's going on, but then he sees the other two people in the room. The first is a tall, black woman with deep, brown eyes and a short, neatly trimmed afro: the underpiece of her robes is lacy and white, but the outer fabric is a popping cherry red. The collar of the under robes is high, coming right up to her neck like Snape's does, but the outer robes are cut low in a V, showing most of her chest, and she wears black Muggle boots that seem incongruous with the obvious wizarding outfit. The man beside her is only a little taller than Snape, maybe 5'10", and his robes are a plain green: he has dark brown hair, and he's even paler than Snape, but in a way that looks healthy. His skin isn't nearly as sallow, for one.

"I'm here," Harry agrees, "Look, is this important?"

"No," Snape says.

"Yes," Dumbledore says. Harry looks at the headmaster sceptically, and Dumbledore smiles at him before he says, "Allow me to introduce you to Lindon Sartorius," the pale man gives a neat incline of his head, "And Cecilia Hayworth." The woman smiles at him, and Harry stares at the both of them before he glances back to Dumbledore, and then to Snape.

"Are you two, like, the real...?"

"The ones who wrote the books," Hayworth says, "Yeah." She's got an Irish accent. "I wrote An Introduction to the Wizarding World, which you might have been given when you were sorted?"

"I've got Catastrophes of the Recent Past, too. And then of course I've got Ministerial Insight and A Serpentine History, and I know you also wrote the introduction to the 1990 edition of The Heirs of Salazar Slytherin, Mr Sartorius." Harry can't help but feel surprised - wizarding academic books don't tend to have the descriptions of their authors, and he'd assumed that both Hayworth and Sartorius would be well into their eighties, but they're both only in their thirties, maybe approaching forty.

"Indeed, I did," he says quietly, with the same clipped, aristocratic tones the Malfoys, the Greengrasses, and the Zabinis use. Pureblood aristocracy, then, Harry guesses. "And of course, I am aware of your defeat of the Dark Lord as of 1981. Your best work, I should think." Harry laughs: it's rare that someone actually makes a joke like that to his face, and rarer still that the joke strikes him as funny.

"Ms Hayworth and Mr Sartorius are here, Harry, to investigate and examine the library in the Slytherin common room."

"We wish to locate artefacts and books that might have been buried somewhat in recent years, as well as to work out when this library was built, and by whom," Sartorius says, smoothing out on an imaginary crease on his robe, "We would like to utilize your unique talent, Mr Potter."

"Your Parseltongue," Hayworth supplies, "For the moment, we just want to look at the library, but after the holidays we'd like you to help us look through the castle, and use Parseltongue in front of certain snake symbols. If a Parselmouth could open that passage, others might be hidden around the castle, locked in the same way - it would have been a perfect method for Slytherin to restrict access to only himself and his heirs." Her eyes are bright, and she's visibly excited at the prospect: Sartorius, in contrast, stands with his hands behind his back and a neutral expression on his face.

Harry glances at Snape, who is watching the exchange with pursed lips and a disinterested expression, as if the two historians have come into Hogwarts to sell Harry a new brand of hoover. It sounds like a lot of effort for a subject Harry isn't extraordinarily interested in, and he considers downright refusing, but...

After an extended pause, Sartorius says, "We would, of course, pay you for your time, Mr Potter, and moreover, you would be credited with any relevant finds." Harry doesn't need the money, but the idea of being credited is intriguing, and there'll probably be other rewards. Not to mention, Hermione would probably murder him if he turned the opportunity down, and Harry's quite keen on surviving the year.

"Alright," Harry says. "Can I go now?"

"Of course, Mr Potter, but before you go," Dumbledore says, but first he holds out a bowl full of white-chocolate buttons covered in hundreds and thousands, "Would you like a Disco Disc?"

* * *

Harry watches Lockhart at the staff table that night, and he can see that he's somewhat put out at the whispers around the room. Some of them are about Harry himself, but the vast majority are about the new people sat at the end of the staff table, talking quietly with each other. New people at Hogwarts always raise a few eyebrows, especially new people under the age of 50, and Harry has already heard some of the older Slytherin lads talking about Cecilia Hayworth's backside.

Lockhart is making conversation with Flitwick, who seems to be doing his best to turn away and talk to Sprout instead, but Lockhart's heart isn't in his boasting tonight: he keeps leaning back to look at Hayworth and Sartorius, or letting his gaze flicker over the room to settle on the students who seem to be most focused on the two historians.

"What houses were they in?" Blaise asks Afifa Lanjwani as they make their way downstairs.

"Hayworth was a Ravenclaw, and Sartorius was in Slytherin," she answers. "They were in the same year as your father, apparently, Draco." Draco puts his chin in the air, seeming proud of this fact, despite his having nothing to do with it beyond blood relation, and Harry rolls his eyes.

* * *

Lucius Malfoy, when Harry writes him, is not forthcoming with information. He brushes the both of them off with a "I didn't really know either of them," but Harry is sure he must have at least known Sartorius, were they in the same set of dormitories at school, and he considers asking Snape about them, but he's aware that asking Snape any unacademic questions is usually a bad idea. Except for asking him about Disco Discs, apparently-

Harry looks up from his letter from Lucius Malfoy.

"Snape was raised by Muggles," Harry blurts out. Harry's an idiot, truly: he's seen Jazzies before, or Disco Discs, or Dazzle Drop, or whatever stupid thing you want to call them, and Harry knows they're not a wizarding sweet. Hermione looks up from her Charms essay, peering at him.

"Malfoy said that?"

"No, Snape did. He told me."

"I doubt he told me."

"Indirectly, he did." Harry sets his letter aside, explaining quickly, and Hermione takes it into account, nodding her head.

"I'm not surprised he's not forthcoming about it usually, Harry," she says lightly, "He is head of Slytherin house."

"He's friends with Lucius Malfoy," Harry says, folding the letter and dropping it into his bag to think about later. "It just seems weird that they're friends, if Snape's Muggleborn."

"You don't know he's Muggleborn," Hermione points out, and then he leans forwards, getting a better look at the library entrance. Harry follows her gaze: Lindon Sartorius' expensive shoes make barely any noise at all on the library's floor as he approaches Madam Pince, speaking to her seriously and keeping her gaze. Sartorius' eyes are a deep grey - not the icy colour of the Malfoys', but far darker, flecked with deep brown. Madam Pince waves her hand vaguely, and Sartorius nods his head, leaving the library again.

"What was Mr Sartorius asking about, Madam Pince?" Harry asks the next time she walks by, and the librarian huffs, shrugging her shoulders.

"Library magic. As if it's hard!" With that, Pince walks off again, and Harry and Hermione share a bemused look.

When Harry makes his way down to the common room that afternoon, after lunch, Sartorius and Hayworth are in the library, and Sartorius is making rough notes on a piece of parchment as Hayworth tells him, firmly, "This is a very stupid idea. I hope you realize that."

"My dear, it is not stupid in the least," Sartorius retorts in his smooth, silky voice, and Harry wonders if he does much public speaking. Sartorius is smug, and obviously a bit up in himself, but it's nice to listen to him speak, and Harry would be much happier to hear him drone on to them in History of Magic than he is Professor Binns. Hayworth puts up her hands, shaking her head, and Sartorius leans, kissing her on the cheek in a dramatic fashion.

Harry settles in one of the leather chairs Frank had brought into the library yesterday morning, his copy of James and the Giant Peach in his lap. It's a funny book, thus far, and Harry's going to mention how much he's enjoying it when he next writes Mr and Mrs Granger; he reads in silence for the next hour or so, occasionally glancing at Hayworth to see what she's doing. She mostly seems to be making careful sketches of the room, from a bird's eye position, and then he realizes that she's trying to map where the room adjoins the castle.

Harry is just leaning forwards in his seat to see how it fits in with Hayworth's existing map of the Slytherin common room and the dungeons when there's a tap on the ceiling above them. Harry looks up, staring at the black glass, but then there's a shift in one of the panels.

Blackness seems to steam away from glass above them, and Harry stares up, wide-eyed, as half of the panel disappears, but water doesn't stream into the room from the lake. A pale hand streaks over the glass, and Lindon Sartorius leans in, giving Hayworth an obnoxious wave from outside.

"Did he swim down here from the surface?" Harry asks, watching in horrified fascination as Sartorius holds up his wand, pulling away the layers of soil and muck clinging to the library's glass ceiling, and Hayworth nods her head.

"It's not as if I wanted to do it," she points out, and she looks up at Sartorius as he walks. He's the sort of person who scowls when he concentrates, and it seems he's concentrating hard, drawing his wand over the glass and dislodging the soil clinging to it. It rises in thick clumps into the lake water, and Sartorius pauses to Vanish it every few minutes.

A bubble is formed thickly around his head, letting him breath under the water, but he's stripped off his outer robe entirely, and his grey underpiece clings wetly to him in the water, its skirt floating around him. He doesn't seem to be put off at all by the cold of the lake, despite it being mid-December, and he works for maybe two hours, meticulously dragging every piece of soil away from the library's ceiling.

With green-tinged light filtering in from the lake above, the library looks more open, and Harry can't understand how he'd thought the ceiling was originally just black glass: the ceiling is like that of a conservatory, and it leaves the room feeling airy and bright despite being so far under the lake's surface.

It's beautiful, Harry thinks, watching sunlight shimmer on the floor, wavy and odd after passing through the water above them. Far more beautiful than he'd ever have expected.


	31. Year Two: The Wagga Wagga Werewolf

"What was wrong with Lockhart this morning?" Harry asks Hermione as they make their way up to the Defence classroom, and Hermione shakes her head.

"So, you know how you were said about Sartorius going in the lake?"

"Yeah," Harry nods his head, and Hermione sighs, seeming almost embarassed on Lockhart's behalf.

"There were all these fifth year Ravenclaw girls out on the grounds, and they saw him coming out of the lake. He was soaked through, obviously, and once he was in the sun, the underpiece of his robes was a bit... Well. Transparent." Harry laughs. Hermione presses her lips together, obviously holding back her own laugh, "And apparently he was rather toned, and not at all bad-looking. So they went inside giggling, shared that with everyone in the school-"

"And now Lockhart's angry that people find Sartorius attractive when he's right there," Harry finishes, and Hermione slowly nods her head.

"I mean, they've both got their good points, of course," Hermione says, "And they look quite different, but both are rather nice." Harry gives her a sideways look, and she catches him, shoving him in the side. "Shut up."

"I didn't say anything, Hermione," Harry replies, smirking to himself, "Both are rather nice. I think you should go for Sartorius, personally. He's got a brain in his head."

"Stop it," Hermione demands, and she rushes ahead of Harry in the corridor to avoid whatever he's going to say next: she stops in front of the DADA classroom's door, though, and Harry watches her for a moment. "Look," she says, and he follows her finger as she points.

The poster is obscenely bright, painted in a popping red, with a portrait of Lockhart front and centre in the image. He shoots them his winning smile as he gestures to the text printed in block white letters. **DUELLING CLUB! TAUGHT BY THE TALENTED GILDEROY LOCKHART!** In tiny letters, printed in the very corner of the page in black, are the words _Assisted by Severus Snape_.

"This should be good," Harry says, "And on the last day before the holidays, too - tonight should be more exciting than we expected."

"What's it like, staying over the holidays?"

"It's alright. A bit boring, but there's a lot of space to get study done," Harry says, and Hermione nods her head. Jon and Peggy hadn't minded at all when Hermione had said she'd wanted to stay for Christmas: Harry's fairly certain that she'd decided to keep him company over the holiday, and he can't help but be grateful. They make their way into the classroom, settling at a desk beside Parvati, and they wait for Lockhart to arrive.

As always, he does so dramatically, exactly four minutes late, throwing open the door and doing his best to make his robes flare out behind him as he enters the classroom. They give a woeful flip of fabric before returning to Lockhart's sides, and Harry shakes his head, putting his hand on his chin.

Every class with Lockhart is the same. He talks at length about one of his books, and they re-enact some ridiculous scene from one of them, and Lockhart talks about how fabulous he was without actually teaching them anything: they're only at the end of one term, and Harry's already tired of him.

"Professor Lockhart?" Harry asks, raising his hand. Lockhart is in the process of writing Wagga Wagga Wearwolf on the blackboard in his ridiculous, looping handwriting, and Harry isn't even going to point out that he's mispelled the word.

"Yes, Harry!" Lockhart says, beaming widely as he whirls around to face the class.

"Did you study werewolves at school, sir?" Lockhart pauses for a moment, apparently thrown by the question, but then he shows all his teeth again in that big, wide grin again.

"Why, of course I did, Harry, but everything valuable about these monsters I learned upon leaving," he answers, tossing back his hair like a woman in a shampoo advert, and Harry watches him for a moment. He doesn't think he imagines the momentary panic that passes through Lockhart's eyes as he meets Harry's gaze. "Why do you ask?"

"It's just, I've read different books on werewolves..." Harry begins, and he sees Hermione cover her mouth beside him. Everyone in the class, Slytherins and Gryffindors alike, are watching Harry curiously, craning their heads and leaning out of their chairs to get a good look at him as he talks, "One of them, Lycanthropy In Society, talks about how dangerous lycanthropy is, and what a danger werwolves are to our society." Harry sees Lockhart open his mouth, but he goes on talking before Lockhart can interrupt him, "But other books I've read, like The Plight Of The Wolf, talk about the tragedy of lycanthropy, especially because it can't be cured. Once you've been bitten, or even clawed, it doesn't matter how long you stay in St Mungo's - the disease will have been passed onto you."

Lockhart is staring at him with the same rapt silence of Harry's peers, though perhaps for a different reason. "But in Wandering With Werewolves, you detail your brave defeat of the Wagga Wagga Werewolf..." Lockhart's stiff form sags with release, and he preens, offering Harry a charming smile. "But you don't detail your casting of the Homorphus Charm."

"Oh, no, no, my boy, it's very complex magic," Lockhart says airily, waving one of his perfectly manicured hands and leaning back on his desk. "You'd have to wait quite some before you could possibly attempt it."

"Oh, I don't want to attempt it, sir," Harry says simply. "I just wonder why you haven't shared it with the Ministry of Magic, in order that so many lives could be saved from rogue werewolves. I mean, it's not a all-out cure, but imagine the drop in potential casualties if you could force a werewolf back into their human form - I mean, not to criticize you, Professor Lockhart, but keeping that sort of magic to yourself seems very selfish." The Slytherins chuckle to themselves around the room as Lockhart opens and closes his mouth, looking at Harry desperately.

He hears Lavender Brown mutter sharply to Dean Thomas that Harry shouldn't be questioning Lockhart like this, and Harry can see that Lockhart is breathing a little faster than he was before, as if he's perhaps going to lose control. "Could I have a word outside, Harry?"

"Sure, Professor Lockhart," Harry says lightly, and he stands from his desk, following the man out into the corridor.

"Now, Harry, you really oughtn't question a professor's authority - the way one presents themselves is, of course, tremendously important, and we wouldn't want anyone thinking of Harry Potter as some sort of disrespectful young man, would we? You see, Harry..." Lockhart talks for a long time, but after that point, Harry stops listening. There's nothing Lockhart could possibly say to him, in these few minutes, that could be useful or interesting, so he just stands in silence, waiting for the man to stop. "Now, is that all clear?"

"Oh, yeah, Professor. Completely clear," Harry agrees, nodding his head, and he follows Lockhart back into the classroom. With that, he proceeds to close his book, roll up his parchment, and set both into his bag. Lockhart stands stock-still at the front of the classroom, mouth open in utter shock.

"What are you doing?" Hermione hisses.

"Going somewhere I can learn something," Harry replies, and with that, he shoulders his bag, closing the door behind him as he leaves the defence classroom. The corridors are silent and empty - they're not even twenty minutes into the lesson's period, and everyone who isn't in class will be in their respective common rooms or the library. Harry's footsteps echo a little as he walks to the staircases: the sound is satisfying.

He waits patiently as one of the staircases slowly swings towards the platform he's standing on, shifting the position of his satchel's strap on his shoulder. Using the stairs at Hogwarts has become second nature, despite the way they constantly move and intercept each other; like the weaving corridors of the dungeons, there is a sort of sense to them, and it's just a matter of focusing on the bits you need. Over the summer, whilst Harry was failing miserably at picking locks, George had said that it would never serve you to try and figure Hogwarts out - that'd only get you lost and give you a headache. Harry's done his best to internalize that advice.

He steps onto the top of the staircase, but as he starts to walk down the moving steps, Harry's caught short. He's pulled back suddenly, and he turns, staring at the strap of his bag, which seems to be stuck in midair behind him.

"Peeves?" Harry demands, gaze flickering quickly over the air behind him as he tries to pull back his bag strap. "Is that you?" There's no answer, but his strap jolts him, pulling him towards the empty air as the staircase slides slowly through the emptiness of the floor before it reaches the next platform, and Harry's eyes widen. He tries to scramble free, doing his best to duck out from the leather of his satchel, but it seems to be stuck to his shoulder and impossible to escape, and there's another ominous tug that pulls Harry a half-step closer to the edge of the staircase. There's a third, hard pull, and Harry can't resist it with nothing to grab onto: he's pulled off the stairs and he begins to fall, desperately trying to grab at a bannister or a step, or something-

He tries to grasp at a first floor staircase with a harsh, sickening crack of sound: Harry screams as he hits his forearm clumsily into the stone and keeps on falling, thrown onto his back. His fall isn't interrupted by anything else - he just whistles down to the dungeon floor, landing hard on his side with a wheezing yell.

Pressing his face to the cool of the stone underneath him and trying not to cry, he begins to call up to the ground floor for help.

* * *

Harry lies on his infirmary bed in silence, twisting a piece of his sheet between his fingers. Madam Pomfrey had shoved three different potions down his throat, and while he isn't exactly in pain, his skin is itching and hot as his bruises heal at obscene speed.

"What have you done, Potter?" Snape asks as he enters the hospital wing, and Harry gives a weak shrug of his shoulders.

"I didn't do anything," Harry answers as Lockhart follows Snape into the room, and Harry stifles his wince. "I was coming out of the third floor corridor and onto the stairs, and my bag caught on something. I turned, and there wasn't anything there - I asked if it was Peeves, but there wasn't any answer, so it pulled me into the stairwell and I fell."

"And why were you coming out of the third floor corridor, Mr Potter, when you were supposed to be in Defence Against The Dark Arts?" Harry meets Snape's black gaze and utterly avoids Lockhart's.

"I left the classroom in a fit of- one second, Blaise called it something really quotable... That's it. A pique of indignation and disbelief."

"Now, Harry," Lockhart says nervously, "That's hardly fai-"

"I asked Professor Lockhart why he wouldn't share his valuable charm to turn werewolves back into people with wizarding society, and he told me that I shouldn't ask him so many questions." Snape's lips twitch in amusement, and Lockhart's perfectly moisteurized cheeks turn an alarming shade of pink.

"I- well, that's not strictly-"

"No matter, Potter," Snape says, cleanly interrupting Lockhart, "Professor Dumbledore requests you detail the incident on paper. Your life, it seems, is under threat once more, Mr Potter."

"When isn't it?" Harry retorts, and Snape turns on his heel to go. Lockhart stares after him, his blue eyes wide.

"Well- Aren't you going to issue him a detention?" he demands, and Snape turns smoothly on his heel once more, staring at Lockhart with arched eyebrows.

"Why, Professor Lockhart," Snape says, putting a sarcastic emphasis on the title, "Bequeathing detentions is entirely within your own power, but I believe Mr Potter has been quite suitably punished already." Lockhart glances back at Harry, having the good grace to look at least a bit guilty, but the sympathy from Snape seems out of character. "With fairness to the boy, he did attend your lesson for twenty minutes before he left."

Harry and Lockhart both stare at Snape with their mouths open, and it's only when Lockhart rushes into the corridor after Snape that Harry begins to laugh.

Which he shouldn't do, really. Laughing with three broken ribs isn't at all enjoyable.


	32. Year Two: Duelling For Idiots

At about quarter to seven that evening, walking slowly beside Hermione, Harry makes his way down to the great hall. Madam Pomfrey had reluctantly allowed Harry to leave for the duelling club, under the express instruction that he was not to actually duel himself: Harry had quickly agreed. There'll hopefully be more meetings of the club after the holidays anyway, and he doesn't mind watching for the time being.

Harry's bones have knitted themselves together quite well, apparently, but there's still a fair amount of bruising up his side, and he's been left tender. "You think it'll go well tonight?" he asks Hermione quietly, and she gives a rueful little laugh.

"I hope so," she says. "Hello, Mr Sartorius." The historian is just stepping into the entrance hall, and he looks to Harry and Hermione with his eyebrows slightly raised.

"Hello," Sartorius says in his low, quiet voice, and he gives a polite nod of his head. "Mr Potter, why don't you introduce your friend here, as she already knows my name?" He seems to find humour in the situation, and Harry gives the man a funny look, but he does as he's told all the same.

"This is Hermione Granger," Harry says, "She's a Gryffindor."

"Indeed?" Sartorius' laugh doesn't have the same slightly sharp note that a lot of the other Purebloods' seems to have - there's no nastiness in it, and he offers his hand to Hermione. Harry can see that she's surprised, but she still shakes his hand, and offers him a little smile. "A pleasure to make your acquaintance, Ms Granger."

"Are you helping with the duelling club tonight?" Harry asks, and Sartorius gives a little shake of his head.

"Oh, no, defensive magic was never a particular skill of mine, and I'm a horrific duellist. I merely wished to enjoy the chaos from the edge of the room." As they enter the room, Hermione and Harry settle on a bench to the edge of the room, out of the way. Two of the long tables have been pushed together in the middle of the room with a thick, blue cloth covering the whole surface and making a platform for the duellists: Snape is already stood on the platform, obviously in a bad mood, and Lockhart is at the side of the room, leaning against a wall and chatting to Cecilia Hayworth. Hayworth doesn't look all that pleased to have Lockhart talking to her, and the relief on her face is obvious when Sartorius approaches, offering the both of them a winning grin.

Lockhart stiffens a little, then rushes up to the duelling platform, clambering up to stand beside Professor Snape. There are a lot of students in the room, Harry can see, all from different houses and different years, but they all go silent when Snape begins to speak.

"Duelling," he says in barely more than a whisper, "Is a time-honoured tradition in the wizarding world. It is a battle of wits, of skill, between its two opponents: it is a true test of one person's magic against another's. A wizard's duel is not a mere case of defensive spells and offensive ones - it is not merely a list of suitable spells. One must learn to move fluidly as one casts, to be ready to change one's stance and position at a half-second's notice: duelling is not for the stiff and upright, but for the constantly evolving."

Hermione and Harry listen carefully as Snape goes on, discussing the history of duelling in his quiet, measured voice. Despite being off to the side of the room, they can both hear him perfectly, owing to the utter silence of the other students watching him, and even Lockhart seems to be slightly spellbound by the way Snape talks on the subject.

"He sounds more excited about duelling than potions," Harry murmurs to Hermione, and she shakes her head slightly.

"No, remember in first year? He gave that poetic speech about what potions can be used for. I think he just likes magic." Harry turns to look at Sartorius and Hayworth, and he can see that Hayworth is murmuring something, explaining something maybe, and he wishes he could read lips.

"Professor Lockhart and I will now have a short duel, that you might observe proper procedure."

"Oh, I don't think that's necessary, do you, Severus?" Snape goes stiff as he meets Lockhart's gaze, and Harry tries not to laugh at the way Lockhart shrinks a little at the sudden glare. "Professor Snape," Lockhart amends quickly, "Why don't we just show a defensive spell first? Now," Lockhart scans the students around the table, but then he spots Harry on the other side of the room. "Harry! Why don't you come up?"

"Madam Pomfrey says he's not supposed to duel, Professor," Hermione calls back, but Lockhart is undeterred.

"Come now, come now! I'll hardly cast back!" Harry sighs, and reluctantly he pulls himself up, making his way up to the duelling platform and stepping up onto the cloth floor. Snape comes towards him, stopping him with a hand on his shoulder before he can approach Lockhart properly. His grip is tight, and he keeps Harry firmly in place.

"Know any good jinxes, Potter?" he asks so quietly Harry can barely hear him.

"You really don't like him, do you, sir?" Harry asks, but he knows better than to expect an answer, and says, "Pimple jinx, sir?"

"Good choice," Snape answers briskly, and he leans away from Harry, making his way down from the duelling platform and leaving Harry alone with Lockhart. Everyone's eyes are on them, and Lockhart offers Harry a big, wide grin as he steps back. Harry sighs.

"Now, Harry, I'm just going to cast this shield charm, and I don't want you to worry about hurting me with whatever little spell you've got planned there!"

"I'm not worried," Harry replies dryly, and Lockhart seems to misinterpret the laughter that spreads through the students gathered around the stage, because he offers them his wide, toothy smile as well. Lockhart stands, making a complicated flicking motion with his wand, and then he stands with his hands on his hips. There's an awkward silence, and Lockhart gestures for Harry to cast. Pulling back his wand and thrusting it forwards in a clean motion, Harry says, "Furnunculus!" The sickly yellow spell flies through the air, and Lockhart bends over with a loud cry as it hits him.

He covers his face with his hands, letting out a horrified shriek, and without saying another word he flees as fast as he can from the room, sprinting out of the great hall's open doors.

"Can I go sit down now, sir?" Harry asks. Everyone is chattering loudly about the spell and why Lockhart's shield didn't work, but Snape doesn't seem at all deterred.

"Off you go, Potter," Snape says, seeming satisfied as he steps back onto the duelling platform again, and Harry retreats. He settles back on the bench beside Hermione, who shakes her head at him in obvious disapproval, but Harry refuses to feel guilty - Lockhart had told him to cast, after all. It's hardly Harry's fault he can't cast a shield charm. "Ravenclaws and Slytherins to my left, Hufflepuffs and Gryffindors to my left. The lot of you, form orderly queues. Now."

* * *

At six o'clock, Snape pulls a battered, silver watch out of an inner pocket, glances at it for a moment, and declares the last duel. Once Susan Bones has won against Padma Patil, he orders, cleanly, "Go away." He'd called students up two at a time, one from each side of the room, and he'd mostly critiqued duelling stances and strategies rather than actual spellwork, but Harry still feels like he's come away having learned a lot.

Snape's horrible, but even when he's telling someone they're an idiot, he usually tells them why.

"I'll see you later," Hermione tells him quietly, patting Harry's shoulder gently, and Harry gives her a little nod, making his way towards the platform again as the rest of the students file out of the room. Lockhart had never come back after fleeing, but Harry's sure that by dinner tonight he'll have gotten rid of the new pimples on his face and forgotten about the incident.

Snape sweeps back the cloth from the tables, beginning to levitate them back into their usual places, and Harry takes the chance to practice the folding charm he'd been trying to get right for the past few weeks, doing his best to spread out the long cloth and get it right. In the end, it's folded into a square - a messy square, but a square nonetheless.

He hands Snape his written account of his incident on the stairs, and Snape takes the parchment, scanning over the lines with a neutral expression on his face. "At least it's not a house elf, this time," Harry says, and Snape furrows his brow at him.

"Pardon, Potter?"

"I had this house elf bothering me over the summer - kept telling me I couldn't go back to Hogwarts, and then he stole all my post over the summer. His name is Dobby, but he's been leaving me alone, now." Snape stares at him, expression inscrutable. For a second or two, Harry thinks he's going to say something, but in the end he doesn't.

"I will give this to Professor Dumbledore, Potter," Snape says, and, taking the cloth from the table, he leaves the room.

* * *

 _Mr Potter,_

 _I actually did know Gilderoy Lockhart when I was at_

 _school - I was some years above him, and he was a_

 _Ravenclaw. He was a strange boy, very flamboyant and_

 _more focused on his hair than his studies - especially for_

 _someone in his house - but once he left school he must_

 _have done something right to be so accomplished._

 _I didn't much like him, honestly, and thought he was a_

 _bit of a pillock (don't share that with him, of course)._

 _He sent me the most terrible Valentine's card to me_

 _when I was in sixth year - he'd made a collage of pictures_

 _of his own face for the card's outside. Needless to say,_

 _I wasn't impressed._

 _Hope you're well,_

 _Amelia Bones_

Harry laughs a little as he reads her response, trying to imagine a younger, stern-faced Amelia Bones with a Valentine from Lockhart in her hands. At least Lockhart isn't an idiot just for them. He writes up a quick response for her, making sure to mention that Amelia's niece had won her duel at the club tonight, and he sets it aside to give to Hedwig in the morning before picking up his copy of the Daily Prophet.

The headlines are about some French gourmet shop opening up a branch in Diagon Alley, an altercation between vampires that happened at a Weird Sisters concert, and a debate about centaur lands in the Wizengamot - none of it's really all that interesting, but Harry finds his eye caught by a little advert in the corner of page 2.

 **YOUNG REPORTERS CHALLENGE**

 _Are you an aspiring journalist below the age of 17?_

 _Do you have dreams of having your name in print_

 _one day, and joining us here at the Prophet?_

 _Send us your best article by December 23rd! The_

 _winning article will be published on Boxing Day,_

 _and its writer will receive 100 Galleons and six_

 _months' free subscription to the Daily Prophet!_

Harry looks at the little advert, and he cuts it out - he's still a bit clumsy with the spell, and he's not nearly as smooth with it as Theo is, but he's better with it than he was before. He grins as he holds the little advert in his hand, and he nods to himself.

He knows exactly what he's going to do with this.


	33. Year Two: The Daily Prophet

Christmas morning brings with it the same ridiculous generosity last year's had, but at least Harry had been able to send people gifts in return this year, and he's beyond grateful for his new books, clothes, and even a few wizarding jigsaws and a chess set that could play against you itself if you didn't have a partner. Harry makes his way out of the common room wearing the new jumper Mrs Weasley had sent him, a smile on his face.

He settles next to Hermione at the single breakfast table once he enters the great hall: they'd agreed previously to exchange gifts at breakfast, and it's a nice kind of normality to share something like this with Hermione. They sit across from each other, and Harry sets his neatly wrapped package on the table, sliding it across to Hermione, and she gives him a bright, wide grin. She pulls two presents out from under the table, which are wrapped a little more messily, with the paper ripped in places, and Harry frowns.

"Why've you got two?"

"Mum and Dad wanted you to unwrap their gift too," Hermione says, the smile staying on her face, as if she knows some secret Harry's not in on.

"Oh, they didn't have to do that-"

"Shush, Harry," Hermione orders, and she hands Harry one of his gifts, which is wrapped in bright, red paper decorated with little lions: in fairness to her, he's wrapped her Christmas present in green, serpent-scaled wrapping paper, and she groans as she gets a better look at it. He waits before he opens his own, keeping his eyes on her face as she pulls open the package.

She frowns at the contents, drawing out the white towel and tilting her head a little, but then she looks at the label, and her eyes go wide. "They dry your hair-" Harry starts, but she interrupts him.

"Oh, Harry, I've been looking at these in Gladrags' catalogue!" she says delightedly. "Thank you! How did you know!?" Harry did not know at all, and just thought they'd be quicker for Hermione in the mornings, so he just taps the side of his nose and does his best to look a bit mysterious. "Open yours, open yours." Harry tears into the paper, pulling it aside, and he laughs when he sees what's inside.

"Michael Jackson's Thriller," Harry says, and he chuckles, smiling at the image of the pop singer on the record's sleeve. "Thanks, Hermione, but I don't have-" Hermione pushes the other package forwards, which is much bigger than the other, and Harry stares at it. "Oh, they didn't."

"They did," Hermione says, and Harry pulls apart the wrapping, staring in utter awe at the turntable inside. It's one of those briefcase ones that you can transport easily, and Harry strokes his fingers over its faux-leather surface. "They bought it from that shop in Diagon Alley, where you got your broom, 'cause you were saying how you'd been listening to the radio over the summer."

"Thank you, Hermione," Harry says, grinning. "Merry Christmas."

"Merry Christmas to you too," Hermione says brightly, and they set their gifts aside for the time being to set about eating breakfast.

* * *

"The charm is Cruso," Harry says, showing Hermione the wand movement, and she copies him, letting a stream of shining, silver baubles come out of her wand. She reaches for one of them, feeling the odd, filmy substance of the bubble under her fingers, and then she draws it back.

"I love spells like this," she says quietly, tapping the bubble with her wand to make it pop and disappear. "It's the simplest stuff, you know?"

"Yeah," Harry agrees, "I get what you mean." To the side of the empty classroom, Harry's new record spins on the table, letting Human Nature sing through the room, and Harry had forgotten how nice it was to just have music playing in the background while doing normal things. "I've gotten better at Serpensortia, you know."

"You must be joking," Hermione says, "How could you possibly be doing better than last time?" Harry shoves her, and she snorts, sitting up on one of the old desks and watching as Harry demonstrates his new found skill.

"Serpensortia!" Harry declares, and a snake bursts forth from his wand, settling on the ground. There's a long pause, and it doesn't move. Harry reaches forwards, delicately poking the snake with the tip of his wand, and it remains utterly still.

"At least it's a real snake this time," Hermione offers, truly looking quite sympathetic.

"Yeah," Harry agrees dispassionately, "But it's still dead." He Vanishes the snake with Vipera Evanesco, which he can at least cast without messing up, and he sits across from her on another desk. "I hate Transfiguration."

"No, you don't," Hermione says, leaning back on her hands. "You just wish you found it as easy as learning jinxes or charms."

"What do you find easiest?" Harry asks, realizing he's never asked the question before, and Hermione frowns, seeming to consider the question for a little while.

She swings her legs where she sits, digesting the question for a few moments before she answers, "I don't think I'm the best at any sort of magic, really. I know you can pick up jinxes really quickly, and I know that say, Seamus Finnegan is really good at anything related to fire, but I feel I'm pretty evenly spread. Average in everything."

"You're not average," Harry says, "You're top of every class."

"Yeah, but that's because I study so hard, and because I know all the theory so well," Hermione argues, "I'm not saying it's a bad thing. I'm just saying I've not got a natural affinity for any particular sort of magic." Harry considers this: Hermione doesn't seem too upset by the prospect, but he doesn't want her to feel any kind of inadequate when she's such a brilliant witch.

"That might change, though," he offers, "Next year, when you pick up other subjects. Do you know what you're going to pick?" Hermione groans.

"No! I want to do them all!" Harry laughs, but he feels much the same. Except for Muggle Studies, all of them look interesting - Care of Magical Creatures, Divination, Arithmancy, Ancient Runes... "Is it true they found a secret passage in the Slytherin common room?" Harry looks up at the change of subject, but then he nods his head.

"The day before yesterday. Ms Hayworth found a switch in the back of one of the bookcases, and it slide aside to open up a tunnel. It was broken off partway through, though - you could walk about fifteen feet down the corridor, but then you just met rubble. It looks like it used to join on to some other part of the dungeons, so you had two ways out of the common room, but all the bricks from the tunnel are scattered across the lake bed, and apparently they can't figure out where it used to lead to."

"I suppose Reparo won't work?" Hermione says hopefully, and Harry shakes his head. "God, it's so interesting. There's so much history here, at Hogwarts, and the fact that they can find stuff like this after so long... You're going to help them find more stuff in January, right?" Harry nods his head. "Should be exciting."

"I hope so," Harry agrees.

* * *

"Shut up, shut up, all of you!" Harry says, standing on the coffee table where Frank had pushed him, and he holds his newspaper aloft.

 **DISASTER OF DEFENCE TEACHING AT HOGWARTS**

 _In September of this year, many students across the wizarding_

 _world were delighted at the thought of the great, the mighty,_

 _Gilderoy Lockhart coming to teach at Hogwarts: a prestigious_

 _wonder, he was thought to impart all manner of knowledge and_

 _expertise unto his students._

 _If only that were the case!_

There's laughter around the room, and Harry grins as he turns his copy of the Prophet around, showing the photograph Colin Creevey had managed to get of Lockhart's spots after the duelling club. The photographic professor continuously looks horrified at the camera flash and does his best to hide his face: he looks utterly ridiculous.

 _Students across Hogwarts have become more and more frustrated_

 _with the teaching methods of Gilderoy Lockhart - an apparently_

 _incompetent wizard in his own right, Prof. Lockhart's classes only_

 _involve acting out scenes from his books, and classtime quizzes_

 _involve such questions as, "What is Gilderoy Lockhart's favourite_

 _colour?" and "How many women did Gilderoy Lockhart go out with_

 _in the course of Voyages with Vampires?"_

 _"He constantly interrupts classes to talk about his hair routines,"_

 _complained fifth year Hufflepuff, Cedric Diggory. "We're all terrified_

 _we're going to fail our Defence O.W.L.s!"_

 _"Every lesson is a press conference," agreed seventh year Slytherin,_

 _Afifia Lanjwani, "He's utterly useless, and a disgrace to the teaching_

 _profession."_

A cheer goes up around the room, and Harry's allowed to get down from the table, reading the rest of article to himself once more. They'd taken the article immediately, of course, and it had been permitted an entire page of the Daily Prophet's Boxing Day issue. It'll sell hundreds of extra newspapers, Harry knows, and he decides he'll keep this article to remember the wonder of the endeavour.

Printed in black, white and orange at the bottom of the page are the words **WRITTEN BY GUEST CONTRIBUTORS, FRED G. AND GEORGE F. WEASLEY** , and Harry knows that even if Mrs Weasley is unhappy, the twins are having a very good Christmas indeed.


	34. Year Two: The Snakes of Hogwarts

The morning after the Hogwarts Express returns, Harry wakes up to a quiet, unfamiliar noise and a warmth on his pillow: he opens his eyes, blearily, and finds his vision completely impeded by a wall of thick, black fluff. Shifting in bed, Harry leans up slightly, and he peers down at the kitten on his pillow, which is purring loudly.

"Draco?" Harry asks sleepily.

"Mmm?"

"Did you bring a kitten?"

"Shut up, Potter," Draco mumbles into his pillow, and he goes back to sleep. Harry gently touches the kitten's glossy, black fur, and its purring gets even louder - he didn't realize they could purr so loudly.

"Oh, there he is," Theodore says from the doorway, and he comes forwards, reaching over Harry and picking the kitten up. It doesn't seem to mind, and it presses its face up against Theodore's chin. "Sorry. Winston thinks everyone's bed is his bed."

"S'alright," Harry says, and he lies back down again. Theodore leaves the room, and Harry wonders for a second if he'd just dreamed that encounter, but no, there are cat hairs on his sheets, and a second impression in the pillow where the kitten had been lying. Winston. What sort of name is that for a cat? After a few minutes of unsuccessfully trying to get back to sleep, Harry pulls himself out of bed, getting dressed and unsucessfully trying to comb his hair down a bit.

Draco's quilt is on the floor, as the other boy had been tossing and turning last night, trying to get used to his Hogwarts mattress again: Harry picks the blanket up and throws it over the other boy's body, shaking his head. He rubs at his eyes as he goes out into the common room, and he sees Theodore settled in an armchair, absently levitating a feather back and forth for his new kitten to chase. It's a Saturday, and at only a little past seven o'clock, barely anyone is awake yet, so Harry makes his way out of the common room and towards the great hall for an early breakfast.

Dumbledore is talking animatedly to Charity Burbage at the staff table, but the only others up there are Sartorius and Hayworth, who are embroiled in conversation with one of the ghosts. Harry begins to make his way up to the staff table when Hayworth waves him forwards, and he realizes the ghost they're talking to is Professor Binns.

The only places Harry has ever seen Binns are his classroom, his office, and the six foot stretch of corridor between the two, so seeing him in the great hall for breakfast is a surprise: Binns, in his typical fashion, doesn't notice Harry's existence, let alone his presence. He and Sartorius are embroiled in a very serious looking conversation about some war or other, but Hayworth focues on Harry.

"Is it alright if we start today, Harry?" she asks, and Harry nods his head. He's had some time to get used to the idea, and giving up a few hours on a Saturday doesn't seem like all that terrible an idea, particularly given that the idea of finding more passes around Hogwarts is an interesting one. Hayworth reaches out, rubbing Sartorius' shoulder, making him glance at her, and then he nods his head. The silent interaction seems normal to them, and Harry glances between them for a second.

With that, he turns around, intent on getting something to eat for breakfast.

* * *

"Did you guys want to be historians as soon as you left Hogwarts?" Harry asks as he follows the two historians through the corridors towards the first place they want to try.

"No," Hayworth answers, glancing down at her notes and counting bricks as they walk forwards. "I was actually handpicked out of school by Gringotts, worked as a cursebreaker with them for about five years..." She trails off, frowning at her own handwriting, so Sartorius picks up for her.

"I served as a researcher for a while upon leaving Hogwarts, then published my first book and began approaching new historical sites and the like. When Celia and I met, she found herself quite interested in the book I was writing at the time, and she began to work on her own." Harry considers this for a few moments - he'd never really considered historians and curse breakers as having much crossover, but he guesses that was a stupid assumption to make. He's heard the fifth year Slytherins talk about what they're expecting to do upon leaving Hogwarts, though, and he doesn't think any of them had talked about going into any academic careers.

"Did you know you were gonna be a historian when you left Hogwarts?" he asks.

"I thought I'd be an Auror," Hayworth admits, finding the right brick, and Harry can see the snake motif carved into its surface: the stone is about five feet up the wall, and he reaches out to touch it, drawing his fingers over the snake's surface. "Though he knew he was going to be an academic."

"Of course," Sartorius agrees. "I've got such lovely hands - it would be a crime to ruin them with hard work." Harry rolls his eyes, focusing on the brick again.

"Open," he whispers. "Open up." He tries about a half dozen variations before Sartorius suggests he tap the snake with his wand as he talks, and this time when he says "Open." the entire brick slides into the wall, revealing a little space in the wall. Hayworth reaches in, and pulls out an empty vial and a few scraps of parchment that seem to be entirely blank. "Is that it?"

"That's it," Sartorius agrees, examining the pieces of parchment as Hayworth holds the vial up to the light. "The majority of the secreted areas are going to be like this, Potter. All of the riches and the treasures, all of the big things, will likely have been removed by Slytherin's heirs over the years: we'll have to work out what we can from what they left behind."

"No offence," Harry says, "But that sounds pretty depressing."

"Yeah," Hayworth agrees. "It often is."

* * *

That Monday, Harry's Defence Against The Dark Arts class is awkward, to say the least. Someone (Harry doesn't know for certain it was the Weasley twins) had left dozens of copies of the Boxing Day article around the room, one of which had replaced a portrait of Lockhart's: the article was blown up to three times its original size and framed in oak, but even though Lockhart spent half of the lesson trying to pull it down, he couldn't manage it.

"Oh, just read!" Lockhart snaps, sitting down at his desk and looking broodily into the middle distance. There's an awkward silence, and Harry hears Daphne murmur something to Pansy, but Gilderoy slams his hand hard down onto the desk and adds, "Silently!" Raising his eyebrows and sharing a look with Hermione, Harry begins to read from one of the books in his bag. At the end of the lesson, Lockhart stands, and his hot, furious gaze lands on Harry. "Stay and have a word, would you, Harry?" His usually charisma-laden voice is thick with anger, his tone stiff, and Harry wouldn't stay alone in a room with the man if it would save his life.

"Can't," Harry lies, and he hurries down the corridor to get to his next class.

* * *

The next few weeks involve Harry keeping as quiet as possible in Lockhart's classes - it's not actually all that hard, given that Lockhart effectively bans talking of any kind whilst class is in session. By the end of January, there are scorch marks all around the framed Prophet article on the wall, but Lockhart doesn't seem to have been able to get it down, and either the other teachers haven't wanted to or haven't been able to help him: Harry suspects it's the latter.

"Did you go to school with Lockhart?" This is the fourth Saturday he's spending traipsing around the castle with the two of them, and he feels a little more comfortable making idle conversation. They've found barely anything so far: Harry's managed to get six more little rooms and cubbyholes to open up, but all of them had been utterly empty, and he's beginning to wonder what the point of this endeavour is.

"No, I think we left the year before he came in," Hayworth says absently, leading Harry and Sartorius towards the bottom of the Astronomy Tower. "I've heard terrible stories about his mood the past few weeks though, let alone the letters in the paper..."

In the advent of Lockhart's disgrace, letters about the man had been flying thick and fast into the offices of the Daily Prophet, and every other day there was a new one published. Some were from parents of upset students, others from people who'd met Lockhart outside of Hogwarts - one anonymous letter even claimed to have been sent in by a professor at Hogwarts, and the Slytherins had put up a pool in the common room as to who had sent it.

"This one?" Harry asks, pointing to the snake on the wall, and Hayworth nods her head. He begins the process of hissing commands in Parseltongue, but this time "Open up." is sufficient, and the stone in front of him lightens to a deep brown as it morphs into a door. Harry can't help but be amazed at the transformation, and he puts his hand on the doorknob, pushing it open. Hayworth enters the little room first to check for traps or hostile spells, but she lets out a loud whoop of sound once she's in.

"Jackpot!" Sartorius grins at Harry, and the two of them follow Hayworth into the little room. It's about the size of the potions supply cupboard in the dungeons, with the same high ceilings and wooden shelves covering every wall, and one shelf is even stacked with jars and vials of different potions ingredients. This isn't the shelf the two historians are concentrating on, though: the other two shelves are half-full, stacked with different books and neatly rolled pieces of parchment. Sartorius grasps one of these and unfurls it, holding it so he can see it, and Harry peers at it in fascination.

It's a map of the staircases, but even as they look at the map the staircases move back and forth on the parchment, showing every level at once and yet somehow being completely comprehensible. "I thought you said we wouldn't be able to find anything of Slytherin's?"

"Oh, this won't be of Slytherin's," Sartorius says, holding the map out. "Look at the parchment, feel it. I'd say this is from the late seventeenth century, maybe the early eighteenth, and the books look a century or so younger, at least."

"You can tell that just by looking at them?" Sartorius gives a little nod of his head, murmuring something about bindings and paper stock, and Harry watches for a while as the two of them carefully comb through the cupboard's contents, cataloguing each book and piece of parchment, noting down the contents of the jars and the bottles.

"You ever wonder if there was something wrong with him?" Harry asks.

"With Slytherin?" Hayworth asks, and she gives a little laugh. "There's no wondering about that. Why do you ask?"

"It just seems a bit bonkers to hide a cupboard behind a Parseltongue seal, that's all." Sartorius frowns at him, seeming deeply offended on Slytherin's behalf, but Hayworth just shrugs.

"You have a point, kid. You have a point."


	35. Year Two: Malfoy v Sartorius

"Oi, Harry!" Harry turns, and he offers the twins a smile as they come towards him. He hasn't seen them around much for the past few weeks - according to Hermione they'd been spending a lot of their time holed up with Lee Jordan in their dormitory, and Harry knows better than to ask what they'd been doing. Fred and George are inventors by their very nature, but Harry doesn't necessarily want to know what exactly they've been inventing.

"Hey, Fred, George. Did you have a good holiday?"

"All the better for your assistance, Harry, my boy," George says affectionately, throwing an arm around Harry's shoulder; on Harry's other side, Fred mimics his brother's action, leaving Harry stuck between the two of them as they walk along the bath down to the owlery. "One hundred Galleons!"

"A hundred Galleons," Fred agrees, "Truly a princely sum for so little effort, so little work!"

"And for a self-rewarding task, no less: Lockhart won't even look at us when we enter his classroom." Harry glances between the two of them, trying to get his head around where this conversation might be going, but then George adds, "But, Harry, were it not for your gallant little self, we'd not have got the idea."

"We gave Creevey ten Sickles for the picture, originally, but we gave him another five Galleons once we won the prize money. We just wanted-"

"Oh, you're not giving me any money for this," Harry says firmly. Fred and George both frown at him. Harry is aware of the pride all of the Weasleys seem to take where honour is involved - it had been hard enough giving Ginny the collected set of Lockhart's books last summer, even though they'd cost so little.

"We're not giving it to you, Harry," Fred argues. "We're just-"

"No, no, look, I didn't contribute at all except to give you the advert. I won't take any money from you." The twins share a look over his head, but Harry won't be convinced. "Look, I'm getting money this year anyway - that Sartorius bloke is paying me per hour for helping him with the Parselmouth stuff, so there's no need." There's a long pause as the twins have a silent conversation over Harry's head.

"Fine," George says finally, and Fred gives a reluctant nod. "Thanks, Harry. It'll look really good for us, that article."

"Well, yeah," Harry says, "Are you guys planning on being journalists?" It doesn't seem quite right for them, but Harry can sort of see it, the two of them as the eccentric, oddball journalists of a comic book series.

"Oh, no," Fred says, giving a little chuckle that's more than slightly evil sounding. "No, no, we have plans galore up our sleeves, Potter, and none of them involve the Daily Prophet." They ruffle his hair, and Merlin, Harry wishes they'd stop bloody doing that, but then they run to leave him be, making their way back up to the castle as they let Harry go and send that week's letters. They're a strange pair, Harry thinks, but he's glad that they're friends rather than enemies - he wouldn't want to live in a world where they pranked him as mercilessly as some of the other students at Hogwarts.

* * *

For the rest of the week, Fred and George seem to take note of how much their affection can irritate Harry. Whenever they see him in the halls, they loudly and obnoxiously blow kisses at him, hug him between them, or touch his hair - worse still, Ron and Ginny receive the exact same treatment, and Ron blames Harry for it, as if Harry has some sort of control over Fred and George that he doesn't. Ginny takes it in her stride, laughing and offering back the same, over-the-top fraternity, but Harry just starts hexing them whenever they come too near him.

"Potter! Detention with me on Friday!"

"Professor McGonagall, it was self-defence!" The twins, despite their new jelly legs, stagger down the hall together, laughing, and Harry lets out a noise of frustration as he follows the other Slytherins into Transfiguration. They're studying the theory behind conjuration, and Professor McGonagall leans against her desk, watching them all keenly.

"Is there anyone in here who knows how to conjure a living animal?" Cautiously, Theodore, Draco and Harry each raise their hands, and McGonagall raises her eyebrows, obviously surprised. Conjuration is usually N.E.W.T. level magic, Harry's aware, but the snake summoning spell hadn't been all too difficult, once he'd started practising. "I assume you all know the same spell?"

"Snake summoning, Professor McGonagall," Theodore answers, and she gives a curt nod of her head.

"Why don't you demonstrate for us, Mr Potter?"

"The last time I tried this spell I conjured a dead snake," Harry admits, but Professor McGonagall doesn't seem at all deterred by his hesitation, and gestures for him to stand up and demonstrate his expertise nonetheless. Harry stands, focusing on his desk in front of him, and he casts, "Serpensortia!" A snake does burst from his wand, and for a second it remains tortuously still, but then it gives a twitch and slithers across the table, letting out a hiss. Harry sags in relief.

"20 points to Slytherin house for an excellent conjuration, Mr Potter, and 20 more to Slytherin for you two, Nott, Malfoy." McGonagall is a strict teacher, but she's certainly fair, and she picks up the snake on Harry's desk, bringing it to the front of the classroom and examining it carefully. "Usually, I wouldn't expect conjuration until N.E.W.T. level: well done, the three of you. For now, however, we will continue with our syllabus: get out your cauldrons, and we shall see if we can't make badgers out of them."

McGonagall pauses for a moment, holding the snake very gently between her fingers, and then says, "Have you mastered Vipera Evanesco, Mr Nott?"

"No, Ma'am," Theodore says, shaking his head, and McGonagall turns to Draco, who gives a small nod and casts his spell: the snake Vanishes with a soft hiss, and McGonagall smiles as she looks between the three of them. Harry doesn't think he's seen her smile at a group of Slytherins before.

"Another five points to Slytherin, Mr Malfoy: very impressive." Harry can see Draco all but preen as Professor McGonagall turns away - it doesn't matter, after all, that he doesn't like her personally. Any praise is praise for Draco Malfoy.

* * *

"Books!" comes a loud call from the Slytherin common room, and Harry and Blaise lean out of their seats to watch Lindon Sartorius come into the common room, a few boxes hovering behind him as he walks. The Slytherin library has been shaping up nicely, with donations coming from both students (Harry's copies of Lycanthropy In Society and all of Lockhart's books had been gladly contributed) and from various alumni, but there must be forty or so volumes stacked in the wooden boxes, and Sartorius only flicks his wand to set them flying onto shelves. "I shouldn't get too excited, children," he says airily. "These are copies of the books we found at the bottom of the astronomy tower."

"Are they any good?" Harry asks as various students pick at the books, scanning through them.

"We've printed them out, as they were all handwritten, but they're a mix of spare notes, lesson plans, journals and abandoned sketch books. Helpful from an academic's view, but not the most exciting of reading." Harry has never seen Sartorius in such a good mood as he stacks up his boxes: the smile on his face is dazzling, and he looks about the Slytherin library with an obvious satisfaction. "There were nineteen books discovered in all, and you're receiving two advanced copies of each: six of the same are being donated to the main library."

Harry walks with Sartorius out of the common room, holding his boxes for him, and asks, "Advanced copies?"

"All others are being sold to Flourish and Blotts: all profits from their production will be sent straight to Hogwarts, but they're going to be free to copy, to redistribute, et cetera. It's called public domain, apparently." Harry frowns, considering this thoughtfully, and he hands Sartorius his boxes back as they come up to his and Hayworth's quarters. "There'll be an article in the Prophet, tomorrow."

"Will people be angry? That you've republished old journals just for the sake of it?"

"Oh, undoubtedly," Sartorius says with a self-satisfied grin. "I'm rather looking forward to it."

* * *

"So, we've done these 9 locations," Hayworth says, pointing at the list she'd compiled of all the snakes and serpentine carvings throughout the castle, and Harry glances at them on her map, where each of them is crossed off with green ink. "And we've got six more to have a look at, plus any that come out of our Prophet interview." The interview had primarily been to answer questions as to what the two of them were finding at Hogwarts, and how the information would be distributed upon their finishing the project: at the end of the little article, there'd been a note asking for those who remembered particular snake insignia around Hogwarts to let them know.

"Professor Dumbledore is going to reiterate that message for us tonight," Sartorius says, and Harry nods his head. "These all do seem doable, Harry?"

"None of it's been hard for me," Harry admits. "All I do is hiss at a statue."

"Yes, well-" Sartorius stops short at the knock on the empty classroom's door, and he calls, "Come in!"

"Oh," Harry says as the door is pushed open, and he stares for a second before he says, "Hi, Mr Malfoy. You okay?" Malfoy casts a disparaging glance around the room, glaring at Sartorius and Hayworth before he turns to Harry and softens a little.

"I am indeed "okay", as you put it, Mr Potter," Malfoy says, offering a somewhat pleasant smile before he turns to meet Sartorius' gaze, and then his expression goes utterly cold once more. For someone so utterly concerned with his hair, the flawless nature of his son, and the birds he keeps (peacocks and doves, mostly, but he seems to love them as much as Hagrid loves monsters), Lucius Malfoy is extremely good at appearing utterly terrifying. "Lindon," he greets with a faux-warm smile.

"Lucius!" Sartorius responds, fake joy shining in his cold eyes and his tight smile. "Shall we converse outside?"

"Let's," Lucius agrees, and Sartorius closes the door behind him as they go outside to speak. Harry looks to Hayworth, but she's utterly silent, lips pressed together: she holds her left hand out lightly, as if ready to draw her wand at any time. Harry creeps up to the door, peering through the window in its surface, and he sees Lucius walk right into Sartorius' space, until they're barely two inches apart: once again, Harry curses his inability to read lips.

Lucius turns on his heel and leaves abruptly, and Sartorius gives a dramatic sigh as he enters the classroom. "Oh, he's angry, Cecilia. Isn't that shocking?"

It's not the actual publication of the books that Malfoy seems to mind, Harry finds later, when Sartorius and Hayworth begin to explain it. It's not that the money from their discovery will go to Hogwarts. The whole issue Malfoy and various other purebloods have with the publication is that they're being sold freely to whomever wants copies: they should be kept away from the hands of Muggleborns and kept only in the hands of those who deserve those pieces of history.

It's utterly insane, Harry thinks. But it's not the first bit of pureblood culture that's thrown him for a loop.

* * *

 **SARTORIUS SHAMED**

Harry stares at the declaration in the Prophet's headline, and tries to ignore the whispers travelling quickly up and down the Slytherin table, from one person to the next. Harry's most recent letter is from Lucius Malfoy, quietly advising that he not take up with Sartorius' kind, lest he be similarly disgraced: Harry hasn't yet decided if Malfoy is showing honest concern, or if he's threatening him. Harry suspects that it's a mix of both.

The main photograph on the front page of the paper is of Sartorius leaning in to kiss a man with dirty blond hair, then drawing back laughing, and while the Prophet doesn't go into the sordid details, it assures the reader that Witch Weekly will in their further articles this weekend.

"Is it really such a big deal that he's gay?" Harry asks Blaise and Theo, and the both of them look at him blankly.

"Gay?" Blaise repeats, frowning and furrowing his brow, and Harry should have realized "gay" wouldn't translate into wizarding terminology - they hadn't used any particular word for it at all in the Prophet, after all. They'd just called it deviant. It's actually pretty much the same to how the Dursleys talk about gay people at home, and Harry's struck by the uncomfortable similarities between purebloods and the Dursleys.

"Uh, it's a Muggle word - is it such a big deal that he's attracted to men, I mean?" Theo scoffs as Blaise lets out a low sound of comprehension, and Theo gives a sharp shake of his head.

"It's not illegal, but it's certainly something to be approached behind closed doors. For purebloods especially - one can hardly continue one's bloodline if one takes up with another man."

"It's a fetish," Draco says, spitting out the word like it's poison, "People like that should keep it to themselves."

"Right," Harry says lowly, sipping at his tea and forcing himself not to say anything more as he stares into the middle distance, pressing his knees together under the table and going stiff in his place. "Right."

* * *

"Are you okay, Mr Sartorius?" Harry asks the man when he sees him the next morning in the corridor, and he seems to find the question utterly hilarious: he throws back his head and begins to laugh before he stops himself, looking down at Harry with apparent affection on his features.

"Do call me Lindon, Harry," he says airily, "And I should think you might call Cecilia by her given name at this point." He doesn't answer the question, and Harry doesn't bother to try and press any more. For Valentine's Day, there are bright, pink ribbons and balloons all around the great hall, and to Harry's horror, there are little gnomes rushing about the room, pushing cards and gifts into the hands of students.

Colin Creevey seems to be doing his best to photograph the room from every angle, and when a gnome pushes a Valentine's Day card into Harry's hands, he sees the camera flash from the corner of his eye, and he snaps at Colin to leave him alone for a bit. The first year, though, is already quite distracted.

Holding a gigantic, anatomically-correct heart made of paper above their heads, the twins stride into the room, and they drop to their knees in front of Sartorius, declaring, "Happy Valentine's Day, oh beloved historian!" Sartorius' pale cheeks go slightly pink as the twins tear the heart into two pieces, sending pink confetti and paper snakes flying into the air.

Sartorius laughs, and he leans down for the twins to pose with him for a photo: Fred and George each kiss him on one of his cheeks, and there are cheers from half of the students around as Colin's camera flashes: Harry catches Creevey by the shoulder, and murmurs, "I'll give you three Knuts for two copies of that picture, alright, Colin?"

"Alright, Harry!" Creevey says excitedly, and Harry grins at Fred when the older boy catches his eye.

* * *

"How're you feeling, Harry?" Hermione asks as they walk over the bridge together, their gaits slow and casual. She glances up and down the bridge for other students, finding it empty, and then says, "I'm sorry about what they said in the Prophet."

"I guess the magical world can't be perfect in all respects," Harry replies, and Hermione nods her head. She hesitates for a second, and then she puts her hand out towards him: he takes it, and they keep walking, hand in hand. "I'm not gay."

"I know," Hermione says, "I heard Malfoy teasing you about the photo of that pop singer you've got on your wall, in her underwear."

"She's not in her underwear," Harry protests, feeling a bit of colour come to his cheeks. "She's wearing a light robe."

"Practically naked, Malfoy said," Hermione says, and she squeezes his hand as come off the bridge and down into the grounds. There's a little snow scattered around in small, slushy piles, but for the most part it's all melted away, and the grounds are just damp rather than blanketed in white. "We're over halfway through the year, now. I'm sure you'll survive."

"Oh, don't say that," Harry mutters, "You'll only jinx it."


	36. Year Two: Casting Shadows

"What are you looking at, Harry?" Theo asks, and Harry glances at him before looking back to the catalogue. "Tents?"

"I thought I'd maybe go camping during the summer," Harry lies in a light, easy tone, "They're not as expensive as I thought they'd be." Actually, the modest tent with a small, working kitchen and bathroom is the one Harry has his eye on, and it's four hundred Galleons. It is expensive, but he's already earned about two hundred Galleons for his few hours of work on Saturdays, and it's a luxury Harry is quite willing to sacrifice some extra reading material for.

It's midway through April, and he can hear the rain pattering on the lake surface outside as he leaves the common room and makes his way up to the library, his catalogue stuffed into his bag. "Hey, Harry," Ginny says, catching him in the hall.

"Oh, hello, Ginny," Harry says, offering her a slightly awkward smile. The Valentine he'd got in February had been anonymous, but he has a sneaking suspicion he's quite aware who sent it to him: Ginny, to her credit, betrays no inkling of this.

"I just wanted to let you know, I just saw a snake."

"Oh, really? Where?"

"In Moaning Myrtle's bathroom, on the second floor. It's on one of the sinks. You haven't checked there yet, have you?"

"Uh, no," Harry admits, but he nods his head. "Cheers, Ginny, I'll mention it to Celia." He eats his breakfast quickly, and he only bothers to give the Daily Prophet a cursory scan: there's not much in it this morning but celebrity gossip and foreign Quidditch scores.

"Good morning, Harry," Sartorius says smoothly as he and Hayworth come down from the staff table. "Good night's sleep?"

"Yeah," Harry agrees. "It was duelling club last night, so I stayed up practising this new spell I saw Roger Davies cast on some Hufflepuff - a knee-reversal hex?" Cecilia winces, so Harry quickly changes the subject, "Ginny Weasley just said there's a snake in the bathroom on the second floor, Moaning Myrtle's?"

"Really?" Celia asks,and she hums thoughtfully, "Let's go check it out then. I don't remember anything being in there, but no one likes to use that bathroom."

"Myrtle Warren? The girl that was murdered back in the forties?" Lindon asks, perking up somewhat, "I never realized she haunted a bathroom." Celia nods her head, and they walk up the stairs together. Harry hasn't seen a snake on a sink, so he has to wonder what sort of broom cupboard or tiny hole this particular passage way could possibly lead to.

They make their way into the bathroom, and Celia makes her way to talk to Myrtle, who pops up out of a toilet in a disconcertingly casual manner. Harry begins to examine the sinks, and then he sees the serpent Ginny must have been talking about: it's carved into the side of one of the pipes, and Harry stares at it carefully. Over the past few months, using Parseltongue has become easier and easier, and he's gaining more of a proficiency in its use: he wants to experiment, in the next few weeks, with casting in Parseltongue and seeing if it makes any difference to spells, but he's not quite at that level yet.

"Open," Harry hisses, and he steps back as the sink begins to sink slowly into the pipes below, disappearing out of sight. Harry leans forwards, peering down the tunnel that dives deep into the darkness, and he feels Lindon's hand coming forwards, but it's too late: Harry jumps, tucking in his elbows as he slides down the dark tunnel and lands... Somewhere.

"Stairs," Harry orders. "Ladder?" There's the sound of metal rungs clunking out of the main part of the pipe behind him, and he calls up, "Come down! It's safe at the bottom!" He turns, looking around him, and even as he turns his head torches light at the edges of the room. He's standing in a high-ceilinged hall, marble friezes carved into the walls around him: the floor is wet and slightly gritty, and he can see there's moisture dripping from some of the walls.

"That was idiotic of you!" Cecilia snaps at him as she comes away from the ladder, and Harry shrugs.

"You'd have made me stay up there if I hadn't gone first," Harry points out, and Cecilia lets out a noise of frustration that echoes through the hall.

"He makes a fair point, Celia," Lindon murmurs, beginning to walk down the centre pathway of the hall. Although the firelight coming from the torches seems completely normal, their flickering light is tinged green by the water around them: Harry suspects at least some of the light is coming from the lake, just as it does in the Slytherin common room, but he can't be sure. The hall continues into a small corridor, and Celia pushes both him and Lindon behind her as she makes her way slowly down the much narrower passageway. After twenty feet or so, though, the corridor opens up again, and Harry wonders if it was originally built like this, or if they had to make some changes to it. After all, if Slytherin built this place, that would have been way before there were sinks and modern plumbing materials in the bathrooms.

Ahead of them, Celia gasps, and Lindon runs forwards to see what's wrong with her. The silence that follows is ominous, and so Harry walks slowly down the little corridor until he reaches green-tinged light and a high ceiling again, but he's struck with the same sudden muteness as the other two.

Lindon Sartorius is on his knees, not caring that the damp, mossy water staining the chamber's floor is soaking into the fabric of his pressed, expensive robes: he's staring up with almost religious awe at the statue that dominates the room. It shows an old man in robes with a thick beard and long hair that each come down to his chest, but the sheer scale of it is what's shocking: the statue, carved of grey stone, must be sixty or seventy feet tall.

"Is that-"

"That's Salazar Slytherin," Lindon whispers, his voice full of fervour and almost religious passion. "Do you know what your little friend has lead us to, Harry?" Lindon looks at Harry with a look of rapture on his face, and Harry wishes someone were here who'd tell the historian to calm down. "This is Slytherin's Chamber of Secrets. This- this place is positively mythical." Lindon scrambles to his feet, and he and Celia grab at each other's hands and forearms, arguing with such rapid talk that Harry can barely understand the two of them, so he doesn't bother. He takes a few steps forwards, looking up at the gigantic statue of Salazar Slytherin, and wonders why anyone would ever want a statue of themselves that bloody big.

Salazar Slytherin, it would seem, was an even bigger pillock than Gilderoy Lockhart. Harry sees an odd shadow flicker wall across the room, and he frowns, turning to ask about it, but then he freezes. Lockhart, in all his orange-robed glory, stands in the corridor they'd just passed through, his wand in hand and a mad glint in his blue eyes.

"Stupefy!" Lockhart yells, and Cecila is thrown back by the force of the spell, dropping unconscious to the damp stone with a wet thunk. Lindon pulls out his wand, placing himself between Lockhart and Harry.

"Go!" he orders, and all Harry can think of is Lindon telling him he's no good with defensive magic, but he scrambles back all the same, grasping for his own wand as he runs to the other end of big, cavernous chamber and towards the feet of Salazar Slytherin. He doesn't know what Lockhart is doing, but he knows that the man looks dangerous, and he looks desperately around for another door, an exit, something to lead him away from the dead end of the chamber at Slytherin's feet, but there isn't one.

"Oh, Harry. Harry, Harry, Harry..." Lockhart calls across the room, making his way slowly forwards. Both Sartorius and Hayworth are lying on their sides on the wet floor, unmoving, and Harry brandishes his own wand as he looks at Lockhart. "I might have let you keep your memories, you know, but you've just been so selfish this year, so ridiculous."

"My memories?" Harry demands, stumbling back against the wall, and he starts desperately trying to think of any word that comes to mind in Parseltongue, _"Open, exit, secret door, open up, open sesame, please-"_

"Oh, yes," Lockhart says sweetly, running a hand through his hair and striding forwards with the arrogant confidence Harry hasn't seen out of him for months now. "You see, Memory Charms are rather a speciality of mine, and I'll be certain you don't remember a thing. I can see the headlines now: historians and beloved hero, Harry Potter, found mad in mythical Chamber of Secrets. Gilderoy Lockhart, five times winner of-"

" _Help_ ," Harry hisses out, and this time, there's- something.

He stares up at the statue of Salazar Slytherin, and he listens to the grinding of stone as Slytherin's mouth begins to slowly, slowly, open up.


	37. Year Two: Basilisk's Glare

Harry hurries out from his place under Slytherin's mouth, making his way as fast as he can to the corner of the room without turning his back on Lockhart, but it doesn't matter. Harry sees the first bare shimmer of scales in the dim, green night at the same time Lockhart does, and Lockhart lets out a loud scream as he flees the Chamber of Secrets as fast as he can.

The snake that slides forth from Slytherin's mouth is huge, carefully manoeuvring itself down to the ground, and Harry squeezes his eyes tightly shut as it keeps on coming, not daring to open them. Of all the deaths he'd want to stare in the face, this isn't one of them.

 _"Keep your eyes closed, little heir,"_ comes a loud, rasping voice that seems to reverberate through Harry's chest, and he can hear the difference now - he can hear the whispering at the edges of the words, simultaneously hear the hiss and the language he understands. _"My gaze will kill. You have woken me from my sleep."_ Harry can't see it, but he can feel the amount of space the snake must take up in the room: it's huge, ridiculously huge, and Harry has to concentrate to keep himself from shaking in his place.

 _"I didn't mean to!"_ Harry hisses out, keeping his eyes as tightly shut as he possibly can. _"Can't you go back to sleep?"_

 _"My sleep was assisted by the magic of the heir some years ago - I cannot sleep so deeply without the charms of a Parselmouth's magic."_ Harry can hear the huge thing's scales shifting and splashing softly in the puddles on the chamber's ground, and he just wants to get to safety, needs to get the two historians out of the way and into safety.

 _"Er, well-"_ What do snakes like? _"There are rats. In the pipes."_

 _"_ _ **RATS?**_ _"_ the monster serpent repeats with loud delight, and Harry sags with relief - rats are, fortunately, a universal love amongst snakes, or so it seems like. Harry listens to the snake as it moves off, and he counts to two hundred before he opens his eyes: he just sees the tip of the gigantic monster's tail slip into a darkened passageway he hadn't noticed before, too close to the corridor for him to have escaped into it.

Harry runs to Celia and Lindon, but both of them are alive: trying to drag them towards the pipes is utterly useless, as it takes too long and he'd only have to leave them at the base of the pipe, so he runs straight to the bathroom, yelling as loudly as he can down the corridors for someone to come, to come now, to help now.

* * *

Harry breathes heavily as he stares down at the two historians. Madam Pomfrey had said they were just Stunned, and they'd be quite fine, but Harry doesn't want to leave the infirmary until he's absolutely certain of the fact.

"Professor Lockhart has been detained," Dumbledore says very quietly from Harry's side, and Harry doesn't even look at him, keeping his gaze concentrated on Celia, whose breaths are beginning to speed up a little. She'll be awake soon, Madam Pomfrey had told him. "We have him locked quite safely out of the way."

"He said he was going to wipe my memories," Harry says distractedly, tapping his fingers onto his knees. "Said he was going to wipe all of our memories." There's a sick sort of anger burning in his chest, a quiet fury that seethes through him, just under his skin. He doesn't want Dumbledore near him right now - he doesn't want anyone near him right now.

"How did you force him to flee, Harry?" Dumbledore speaks quietly in the same, grandfatherly tone he seems oh-so-fond of using, but Harry doesn't want to hear it right now. He doesn't want Dumbledore's kindly air - if anything, he'd rather Snape's biting, sharp tones right about now.

"I'd prefer Mr Potter, if you don't mind, Professor," Harry says through gritted teeth, because it's Dumbledore's fault Lockhart is here in the first place, and after an extended silence, Dumbledore tries again, repeating the same question.

"How did you force him to flee?"

"There was a snake," Harry says quietly, "A big one, gigantic. It told me not to look at it, else I'd die." He tears his gaze away from the two historians to look at Dumbledore, and he breathes in, slowly. He'd forgotten about the snake for a few minutes, so focused was he on Lockhart and the two historians, but now he forces himself to think about what's wandering the pipes of Hogwarts right now. "What sort of snake is that?"

"It would meet the description of a basilisk," Dumbledore murmurs, his blue gaze boring into Harry's own. "A fiercely venomous snake that can kill those who look at it with a single look, but it will be killed by the cry of a cockerel. I'll have Hagrid-"

"You can't kill it," Harry breaks in, surprised by his own intense feeling on the subject, "It's not the snake's fault. It's been in that Chamber for hundreds of years - you can't just kill it. It could tell us so much, about Slytherin, about his heirs, about the castle, and it doesn't deserve to die just for what it is." Dumbledore is watching him with a quiet, focused gaze, and Harry turns his head away. Dumbledore seems somehow pleased at Harry's want to keep the snake alive, and Harry doesn't know what that says about Dumbledore, or what it says about himself.

"And what would you suggest we do instead, Mr Potter?"

* * *

Harry slides down the pipe from Myrtle's bathroom again, making his way slowly into the Chamber of Secrets once again. He commands for the ladder to reappear behind him, so that he can easily flee if he needs to, and he stops short for a few moments. Dumbledore is waiting at the entrance in the bathroom upstairs, ready to pull Harry out if need be, but he'd agreed that the snake would react better to Harry talking to it himself. Harry begins to walk forwards, making his way back to the broader part of the chamber.

He's stopped short, though, by a loud pop from behind him, and he turns, staring. "Harry Potter must not!" Dobby begs, his huge, watery eyes shining with desperate tears: Harry hasn't seen him since the summer, but of course he recognizes the house elf's dirty pillowcase and his wrinkly little face.

"What the Hell, Dobby? Have you been following me this whole time?"

"Dobby thought the danger was over, Harry Potter, sir, and left Harry Potter's side before Christmas," Dobby says anxiously, jumping from one foot to the other and wringing part of his pillowcase between his fingers, "But Dobby had heard, sir, that the Chamber of Secrets has been opened, and Harry Potter must be safe - Harry Potter must not face the monster." His ears are flapping wildly, and Harry scrambles away from him, making his way into the little hall.

"Please, Dobby, just leave me alone!" he snaps, and he closes his eyes tightly again, touching the sides of the narrow passageway to keep himself on the right track. He stops when he puts out his hand and meets free air, lingering in the little hallway. "Hello?"

 _"The little heir has returned,"_ the basilisk says, and Harry shocks backwards with a gasp: the snake's head must be close to him, because he feels its exhalation on his skin, and despite himself he acts on instinct, retreating back into the hallway a bit. He wonders if the small corridor would be too small for the snake to get into, but he doubts he'd be so lucky for that to be the case.

 _"Yes,"_ Harry says, _"What's your name?"_

 _"We do not have names,"_ the basilisk responds in a disparaging tone, _"No serpent needs a name, the King of Serpents even less so."_

 _"Right,"_ Harry says awkwardly, _"Well, look. I don't want to put you back to sleep in the Chamber of Secrets."_

 _"Finally!"_ the basilisk proclaims in horrible, hissing joy, _"Am I finally to fulfil my ancient purpose, little heir? Am I to purge the school of its scum?"_ There's a sick feeling in Harry's belly, and he shakes his head without opening his eyes.

 _"No,"_ Harry says hurriedly, _"No, nothing like that, but I want to get you somewhere better, somewhere with rats and all kinds of stuff to eat."_

 _"Somewhere... Better?"_

 _"Yeah."_

 _"Somewhere... Else?"_

 _"Well, yeah,"_ Harry says, sensing something off about the basilisk's tone, _"Why live in the bowels of the castle like this, right? You could be free!"_ The snake lets out a loud hiss that sounds like a cry in Parseltongue.

 _"Are you truly the heir of my master, my creator, Salazar Slytherin?"_ it demands loudly, and Harry's heart begins to beat hard in his chest.

 _"Er-"_

 _"You are not!"_ the basilisk roars, its fury making the walls of the chamber rattle. _"You traitor, you liar, you cad!"_

Harry feels the sudden displacement of air as the basilisk rears back, ready to bite him, but then he hears the warcry of, "You shall not harm Harry Potter!" The basilisk lets out another loud scream, and Harry opens his eyes in pure surprise as hot wetness spatters across his chest and little across his face. It's blood, he realizes, basilisk blood: Dobby has taken out the snake's eyes.

"Come on, Dobby!" Harry yells, gesturing for the house elf to follow him down the hall and back towards the entrance. The house elf doesn't move, keeping his little hand outstretched as the basilisk screams, and Harry yells again, "Dobby! Come on, we've got to go, we've got to get out-" His voice echoes loudly down the little corridor, but just as Dobby turns to follow Harry, the basilisk lunges.

The wet crunch of the little house elf's body under its teeth echoes nauseatingly throughout the chamber, and Harry's stomach gives a sick lurch as he drags himself up the ladder and up into the bathroom.


	38. Year Two: The Long Way Home

Harry lies in utter silence in his infirmary bed, staring into space. He wears his usual pyjamas, and he has two quilts drawn over him - despite this, he continues to shiver violently at the slightest of breezes, and he's aware that everything Madam Pomfrey has given him so far has probably had a heavy dose of Calming Draught in it. He'd stayed overnight in the infirmary after he'd dragged himself out of the Chamber of Secrets, and now that morning has come, Dumbledore has come to speak with him.

"Do you think we can talk, Harry?" Dumbledore asks.

"Mr Potter," Harry corrects him sharply, and he sees the disappointment on the old man's face, but he doesn't apologize. Dumbledore sits slowly in the chair beside Harry's bed, and Harry breathes in slowly as he carefully closes the curtains around Harry's bed. "Is it dead?"

"We believe the basilisk has fled into the Forbidden Forest," Dumbledore answers quietly, "Its eyes were completely destroyed, so it may die of its wounds soon enough. I'm afraid Dobby, the house elf, died during the encounter." Dumbledore phrases it so delicately. Encounter.

"He wasn't supposed to be there," Harry says. "He said- he's been-"

"During the summer," Dumbledore begins, "Dobby's master put a dark magical artefact in the hands of one of our first year students, with the intention that its effects be felt through Hogwarts. It was Dobby who caused the chaos at King's Cross station this year, in disenchanting the wall between platforms nine and ten. Inadvertently, he ensured that the diary was found, as each of the school trunks had to be brought to Hogwarts in smaller batches.

Not realizing this, it was Dobby who pulled you from the stairs in December. He believed that, were you injured sufficiently, you might be sent home. Professor Snape recognized his name when you mentioned it to him, and I managed to catch him aside the next time he attempted to hospitalize you, explaining that the artefact had been confiscated."

"But when you sent word that the Chamber of Secrets had been discovered to the governors, he heard," Harry says. "He knew. He didn't need to- He shouldn't have-" It plays again and again in Harry's mind, the sick, sharp noise of the elf's bones shattering under the teeth of the basilisk. It's not the same as seeing Quirrell burning under his hands: it plays over and over again in his mind, wrenching him with guilt upon guilt. Quirrell would have killed him, was harbouring Voldemort, but Dobby was trying to help him, just wanted to keep Harry safe. Harry didn't even know him. "Who was his master?"

"I'm afraid I can't tell you that, Mr Potter," Dumbledore says delicately, and Harry shifts under his bedsheets, pulling them more tightly around himself. There's a long silence, and Harry closes his eyes tightly, doing his best to ignore the headmaster beside him. He can't sleep - it's only five o'clock in the afternoon, despite Harry's utter exhaustion, and so he just lies there, eyes closed, body stiff.

"Open your eyes, Potter," Snape orders after an indeterminate amount of time, and he looks up, wondering what the Hell Snape is goign to say to him, but then he realizes he'd brought Hermione. She pulls the armchair close to the bed, sitting beside Harry, and without saying another word, Snape leaves the room. Harry's not going to talk back to him for a month. Harry's going to send him a bouquet of flowers. Harry has never felt as much gratitude for his head of house as he does in this moment.

He lies in silence for the longest time as Hermione looks down at him, her brown eyes full of tears, and there's another aching twinge in his belly. "Don't cry," Harry says, "I'm fine."

"You're as pale as parchment," Hermione retorts. "You're obviously not." Hermione scoots further forwards, and then she climbs onto the bed beside him, shoving him half a foot to the side and getting under the covers with him, but he doesn't mind. Harry sits up with her, leaning against the pillows, and they lie back against the wall for a while, shoulder to shoulder. "What happened?"

"Well," Harry says slowly, "Ginny caught me in the hall this morning..." He talks for what seems like hours, letting word upon word tumble clumsily out of his chapped lips, and Hermione just listens, sitting there next to him in bed - is this what having a sister feels like, Harry wonders? He knows that she's there, that she wouldn't dare leave him be right now, and gratitude surges through him as he just keeps talking and talking, until he's so exhausted he can't say anything more.

And then they just sit there in silence again, until Harry feels himself falling asleep against Hermione's shoulder.

* * *

The Hogwarts Express moves slowly out of Hogsmeade station, and Harry sits in silence as he waits for Hermione to come back from the bathroom. He'd changed into Muggle clothes that morning, not bothering to wear his Hogwarts robes for the carriage ride down to the station, but Hermione had worn them for propriety's sake.

Perching on her cage beside him, Hedwig leans in, and Harry lets her rub her head against his own, leaning into the touch. On Hermione's seat is a discarded copy of the Daily Prophet, displaying photographs of Lindon Sartorius and Cecilia Hayworth standing before the statue of Salazar Slytherin in the Chamber of Secrets.

Once the basilisk had fled the Chamber of Secrets, Dumbledore and McGonagall had sealed the pipeline it had used to flee into the forest, and with the basilisk gone, the historians had been free to explore the hall's depths at will. Thirty or so different academics had come to study the Chamber in the past few months, but Harry had felt no satisfaction at finding it. He'd felt even less when Lindon had insisted he take a three hundred Galleon reward for his assistance, though it had given him some small comfort to see Ginny Weasley's utter shock and delight when Lindon had presented her with a similar prize.

"Stop thinking about it," Hermione says as she comes into the carriage again, robes replaced with a blouse and a pair of jeans.

"I wish I could," Harry admits. "How long do you think his stint in Azkaban will be?"

"I don't know," Hermione says quietly, reaching out and petting Hedwig gently. "All those people that came forward and said that Lockhart had wiped people's memories..." She shakes her head, sitting across from him and frowning deeply. Lockhart's trial had started a few weeks ago, and Harry had testified against him in May, but details of his crimes had appearing in the Prophet since, each worse than the last.

"How many lives do you think he stole?" Harry asks, feeling sick at the very thought. "How many memories did he just wipe away?" He's going to be sentenced soon, Harry knows, and it can't come soon enough. Hermione looks at him, frowning so deeply that a little line appears on her forehead.

"Tell me what's in that parcel," Hermione says, changing the subject, and Harry looks down at the brown-paper wrapped package in his lap. It had come this morning, delivered by two eagle owls, and he strokes absent-mindedly over its wrapping.

"It's a tent," he answers, and she frowns at him. "A magical tent. Bedroom, bathroom, kitchen. Dumbledore won't let me leave the Dursleys, but I don't have to actually spend any time with them." Hermione gives a nod of her head, obviously approving of the idea, and Harry reaches up and into his trunk, pulling out an exploding snap set. He puts the tent in the corner, and the both of them sit cross-legged on the floor, setting out the cards between them. Harry had offered for Neville to come and sit in their carriage, but apparently Seamus, Ron and Dean needed a fourth player for some board game, and Neville was heading back to London with them.

After a little while, he asks in a conversational tone, "So, what do you think will go wrong next year?"

"Maybe you'll only get an A in Defence."

"Don't be unrealistic," Harry retorts, and Hermione begins to laugh. They laugh together, and Harry relaxes into it, embraces it. They're just two kids, taking the long way home, and until they reach King's Cross station, they can be completely and utterly normal for a while. Maybe they'll even put a record on.

He's going to embrace normality while it lasts.


	39. Year Three: The Tramp On Kellogg's Walk

Harry stands back, looking with satisfaction around his living space. The tent is simply furnished: there's a bed, a chest of drawers and a wardrobe to the right of the room, and to the left is a modest kitchen with a few cupboards, a simple hob and an oven. The only other piece of furniture is a low, oak coffee table in the middle of the room, and there's a little door that leads into the bathroom.

There are few things more bizarre in the world than a clawfoot tub in the middle of a tent, but Harry has learned to embrace the weird and wonderful over the past few years in the wizarding world.

His things are all unpacked: his trunk lies open at the end of his bed, his record player sits on the coffee table and his bits and pieces are scattered around the room - a cloak and two jackets hung on the hooks on the back of the bathroom door, his organiser settled on the dresser, his broom leaning against his wardrobe. Even his poster of Lixie Pott, the fae pop princess of 1990, is stuck up on one of the fabric walls. This isn't a cupboard under the stairs or someone else's second bedroom, and it's not a shared dormitory, either.

Surveying the scene, Harry feels a true sense of ownership, of belonging, that he's never experienced before: for the first time in Harry's life, he's looking at a home that is utterly and entirely his own. Hedwig hoots at him from her place on the bed's footboard, and Harry blows air at her: almost entirely his own.

Smiling, he steps out of his summer home, and double checks the tent ropes where he's tied them to bits of shelving around Dudley's room - they're all well secured, and Harry's content with how they're set out. He zips the tent shut and flicks closed the magical padlock on its opening: there's no sense risking Dudley going in and trashing the place, after all. There's an opening in the tent's roof that owls can enter and exit by, but beyond that it's quite secure, and he's going to keep Dudley's window open the whole summer.

He steps out of Dudley's second bedroom, pulling on his coat - the summer is warm, but it's showering outside for the time being, and he doesn't want to get wet.

"I've set myself up, Aunt Petunia," Harry says, making his way into the kitchen. She stares at Harry like he's a particularly bad smell, but Harry stares right back, unflinching. "I've got my own bathroom, my own kitchen, so I'm not going to have to eat meals with you guys." Petunia crosses her thin arms over her chest, twisting her mouth as she looks down at him.

"It's magic, is it?" Oh, good on her, Harry thinks. She's finally able to say the word.

"I mean, technically it's just a bending of the rules of physics," Harry offers, and her scowl deepens. "Do you need anything from Tesco? I need to pick up some shopping." Petunia looks angry at the very thought, as if somehow Harry being a wizard and picking up a few things from the supermarket must cancel each other out. Dudley has no concerns, though - if Harry gets something for him now, he won't have to go get it himself or wait for his mother to get it for him.

"Blue milk," Dudley demands through a thick mouthful of chocolate cereal.

"Red milk," Petunia corrects, and Dudley groans. He's been on a diet since last year, and while it doesn't seem to have made any difference to Dudley's size, it's made a big adjustment to his usual bright and sunny attitude. Harry hadn't known he could possibly get worse, but he certainly has. Skimmed milk for Dudley it is.

1010110101010101

 **LOCKHART TO SERVE 25 YEARS**

There are two photos of Gilderoy Lockhart in the paper, side-by-side: one is of him posing in bright yellow robes, tossing back his hair and performing his ridiculous little for-the-camera laugh, but the other is a stark contrast of him in court, hair stringy, skin pallid. Harry feels a deep satisfaction at seeing the transformation, and he pushes the guilt he feels for the fact away.

There's a list of his crimes in the paper, and Harry sits back on his bed, reading the entire account of the fraud: the Prophet has done a full feature on each of Lockhart's books and who he stole his apparent deeds from, and Harry can't help but read the article from its first sentence to the end.

The style is unfamiliar, sort of like the inflammatory style Harry sees in the gossip magazines Petunia pretends she doesn't buy in with the TV Times and The Daily Mail. He glances at the byline, and he sees the name: Rita Skeeter. He frowns a little, trying to remember if he's heard the name before - he thinks maybe it's been mentioned in one letter or another, but only in passing, and he doubts it was all that important.

In the post the same day are a few scattered letters - one from Theo Nott, another from Dromeda Tonks, and most importantly is his letter from Hogwarts, listing his supplies and confirming his choices for his elective subjects next year. Care of Magical Creatures looks to be interesting, especially if it involves animals a bit tamer than basilisks and three-headed dogs, and he and Hermione had agreed to take Ancient Runes together. Harry had taken recommendations from different people last year, but one of them had stuck with him: Lucius Malfoy had mentioned that Runes were a crucial element to learning how to cast long-term wards, and had even listed a few book titles on the subject.

Harry knows better than to trust Lucius Malfoy, but the man usually knows what he's talking about, and warding is a fascinating area of magic.

He glances through the rest of the envelope, scanning his equipment list, and then he picks out the unfamiliar form about Hogsmeade visits, glancing over it. Sighing, he pulls himself up and heads downstairs, leaning into the kitchen: immediately, he shoves his permission letter behind his back.

"Oh, there's the boy," Marge grumbles, turning up her fat nose, and Harry sets his jaw. She's sat down in the kitchen with Vernon and Dudley, and Harry glances back into the hall, where the shrew's suitcases are settled next to the door, and he sighs. Why would he have assumed that the summer would be alright for him? Why on earth would he have thought it might be enjoyable for once?

"Here he is," Harry says dryly. "Just letting you know I'm going out, Aunt Petunia." Aunt Petunia is distracted, looking with disgust at Marge's dog where he sits at her feet, and Harry doesn't mind her attention being focused on something other than him.

"Where are you going?" Marge and Vernon demand at the same time, and Harry rolls his eyes, seeing their family resemblance more than ever.

"The off-license, where else?" he retorts, and he shoves his permission letter into his pocket, ignoring whatever insult Marge calls after him. He refuses to listen to any of it - she can say whatever she likes about his parentage or whatever, but he doesn't have to sit there and let her direct her bile at him.

He picks up some eggs, and he stops as he leaves the corner shop off Kellogg's Walk, scanning the notice board beside the exit. There are different adverts for around Little Whinging, selling lawnmowers or advertising child minding services, and Harry goes back to the counter. "Sorry," he says, "Have you got a card for the board?"

1010101010101

"You're filthy," Marge says as Harry enters the house a few weeks later, and he ignores her: this is the fourth or fifth time she's hovered in Privet Drive's hall, waiting for him to come back, and apparently she still doesn't completely understand the idea that doing odd jobs in people's gardens might get a bit of dirt on someone's trousers.

"Don't mind me, Marge," Harry replies in as airy a tone as he can muster. He has twenty five pounds neatly settled into his wallet for his day's work, and for once he's grateful that Petunia had him spend so much of his time before Hogwarts tending the flowerbeds and keeping her lawn in such keen shape. "I'll just be up in my room, making no noise and pretending that I don't exist!"

When he gets into his tent, he sets his new Muggle money in the cheap money box he'd bought for his dresser: he'd had several calls the very morning that he'd put his little advert in the shop, and he'd started immediately. It isn't all that hard - he mows lawns, prunes rose bushes, paints fences. He does everything he'd had to do in the summers before he started going to Hogwarts, but now he gets a bit of money for it, and the people he does the work for are both nicer and more grateful than Aunt Petunia.

He sets his coins and five pound note in the box, closing it up, and then he puts on the Celestina Warbeck record Mrs Weasley had sent him as a birthday present, settling down in front of the coffee table to work on a jigsaw. Harry had never done a jigsaw before this summer - Dudley had never liked them, so Harry had never really gotten the opportunity to do them before, but he finds he quite likes the process. He hasn't yet decided whether the moving image on the jigsaw - a Welsh Green asleep on a hillside - makes it easier or not.

He hears a knock on the bedroom door, and he absent-mindedly calls, "Come in!" Aunt Petunia appears in the tent's doorway, and she's stopped short, her eyes wide as she glances around the room, her eyes wide and her lips parted in utter surprise. Lixie Pott gives her a seductive wave and blows her a kiss from her place on the wall, and Aunt Petunia turns her head away, tutting, before looking at Harry severely.

"Marge is leaving," Petunia says crisply, "If you'd take her suitcases out to the car?"

"Sure," Harry says, pulling himself up off the floor, and Aunt Petunia lingers in the doorway, looking around the room with curious eyes. It's the same curiosity that makes her buy the stupid celebrity gossip magazines and peek out of the curtains if Mr Perkins is late coming home from work on a Friday night - she just can't help but be nosy. He doesn't bother to point it out, though - he just walks past her, grabbing his coat and heading downstairs. He doesn't talk to Marge or Vernon, and just gets on with dragging both of her cases out to the car and dropping them heavily into Uncle Vernon's boot.

He needs to grab some more pasta for himself, so he walks straight away from Privet Drive. Kellogg's Walk is a good fifteen minutes away, but the big Tesco is twenty minutes further, but Harry's not going to bother walking all the way for a packet of pasta.

It's nearly six o'clock in the evening when Harry starts walking back, and Harry enjoys the golden light streaking across the sky: Harry despises the perfectly manicured lawns, middle class window dressings and pretentious hedges of Little Whinging, but he loves the warmth of the sky, the lack of light pollution, the fields that go on for miles if you walk the right way out of town. Were the suburban houses removed from the equation, Harry would love Little Whinging - he thinks he'd like to live somewhere rural one day. Maybe have a cottage.

"Harry," says a hoarse voice from behind him, and Harry turns. On pure instinct, he takes a stumbling step back, clutching his bag of pasta illogically to his chest as he stares in front of him. The man is gaunt and emaciated, his black hair and beard sticking filthily to his head, and he's dressed in stinking grey rags that must leave him freezing even in the August warmth. Outstretched to Harry, his hands are shaking, but Harry makes no move to take one.

"How do you know my name?" Harry demands, staring into the man's eyes. He's some kind of tramp, Harry's sure, but he can't really gauge his eyes when he's hidden under such thick beard and filth, and the man shakes his head.

"Needed to, needed to see that you were alright, Harry, are you alright, Harry, alright?" The man looks so desperate to know, his eyes wide where they're sunken into his face.

"I'm fine," Harry says, "Who are you?"

"Need to get to Hogwarts, now," the man says, his voice hoarse and croaking, and he sounds as if he hasn't spoken to someone else for years, "He's at Hogwarts." The man begins to totter away from Harry, his gait unstable, and Harry looks after him, but he knows better than to follow him.

When he gets home, Uncle Vernon is watching the news, and Harry stands stock still in the living room doorway as he holds out his Hogsmeade permission form for his uncle to sign. "Hang on!" Vernon snaps distractedly at the newsreader, scribbling his signature on Harry's bit of parchment. "You haven't told us where he's escaped from!" The face in the image is much younger looking, much more handsome and clearer, without so much beard covering his face, but Harry recognizes the tramp on Kellogg's Walk.

"I think he's escaped from the wizard prison, Azkaban," Harry says quietly, staring at the picture on the screen and feeling a cold shiver run up his spine. The Dursleys are all staring at Harry, slack-jawed with their eyes wide, but Harry doesn't, can't, say anything more on the subject: he walks up the stairs and into his tent in a dream-like state.

He knows it already, feels it in his bones. He's not going to have a normal year at school after all.


	40. Year Three: Reunited With The Weasleys

**SIRIUS BLACK ESCAPED FROM AZKABAN**

The name rings in Harry's ears again and again: Sirius Black, Sirius Black, sing-song and mocking. The paper had sprinkled little details in the article about the man, that he'd killed thirteen people and just stood there, laughing, that he'd been a follower of You-Know-Who, that nobody had ever escaped Azkaban before, and each one of them bounces around the inside of his skull, forcing him to try and think.

Sirius Black had escaped from prison after twelve years, but he'd come to see Harry. And not to try and kill Harry, either - the man had been unhinged, but it had been obvious he hadn't meant Harry any harm. Harry lies in the bath, drumming his fingers on the edge of the tub and trying his best to think.

Hermione is coming to pick him up next week, as the Grangers are coming through Little Whinging on their way back from the airport, and they'll all stay in Diagon Alley for a few days before he and Hermione catch the Hogwarts Express on September 1st, but he wants to know more in the meantime: he just needs to figure out how to phrase what he's asking.

 _Dear Mrs Weasley,_

 _Thanks for your letter last weekend - I've been listening_

 _to that record you sent me, and I really do quite like her_

 _voice, I think, though she just can't compare to Lixie_

 _Pott._

 _I just wanted to ask you as I'm still home from school for_

 _another week or so before I head into London with the_

 _Grangers the Friday after next - should my Muggle_

 _relatives be doing any particular thing to stay safe from_

 _Sirius Black?_

 _I saw in the paper that he'd killed Muggles, and I just_

 _wanted to make sure they'll be alright once I've gone off_

 _to school._

 _Harry Potter_

It's a similar phrasing to what he uses with Amelia Bones, and he sends a small note to Professor McGonagall, too - he knows that Narcissa Malfoy or Theodore's dad would probably know more about the political side of Black's escape, but they wouldn't care about the well-being of any Muggles, related to Harry or not.

He gets responses in the next few days, but all of them remain utterly vague - the majority of Mrs Weasley's letter is about Celestina Warbeck's crooning songs versus the more updated, poppy style of Lixie Pott: she barely mentions Black at all, except to say that he probably shouldn't worry, and McGonagall's letter is curt and just tells him to remain safe.

Letting out a little groan, Harry drops face-first onto his bed and gives up for the time being. Even if Mrs Weasley won't say anything about this by post, he'll be able to get more out of her once he can see her in person, and for the time being, at least, he knows Sirius Black is heading North.

* * *

"Oh, I wouldn't worry about him, Mrs Granger," Harry says casually, "He probably didn't even survive the swim over to Britain, and even if he did, his wand will have been snapped and he won't be any threat." Mrs Granger breathes in, but then she gives a little nod of her head as Harry and Hermione move into the Leaky Cauldron.

"They don't snap people's wands for going to Azkaban," Hermione whispers. "That's only if you get expelled."

"Did you want to tell your mum the truth about the mass murderer who's just escaped from prison?"

"No," Hermione retorts, "I'm just saying my lie would have been based in more truth." Harry rolls his eyes, and he drags his trunk into the Leaky Cauldron. September 1st is on Monday morning, so the four of them are staying in the Leaky Cauldron until Hermione and Harry are put on the train, and then the Grangers are going to return home.

"Oi, Potter!" comes a loud yell, and Harry automatically grabs for his wand, but before he can draw it out of his trousers he's being wrestled to the floor, and Harry lashes out as best he can. George grabs at his wrists, holding them above his head, and Fred sits on top of him with a triumphant yell.

"Get off, you ginger bastards-"

"Fred! George!"

"George, don't do that-"

"I swear, I'm gonna kill you two before the year is out-"

"Get off him, Fred!" Harry twists his waist to the side, making Fred lose his balance, but he can't quite kick himself free of George's grip until Hermione smacks George upside the head, making him let out a wounded sound and release Harry's arms. Percy drags Fred up by his shirt collar, and Hermione shoves George in the chest, scowling up into his face. George is about a head taller than her, and she's forced to tilt her head up to look at his face.

"You seem a bit angry, Granger," George says playfully, not seeming to mind Hermione's obvious wrath at all. "Feeling a bit protective?"

"Don't call me Granger." George leans down a little, so that him and Hermione are nose-to-nose.

"What, we on first name terms now, are we?" Harry can see Hermione's skin darkening slightly as she blushes, and he winces as he watches George let out a little chuckle: Hermione delivers a sharp punch to George's chest, making him choke out a noise and bend over, gasping in his breaths. Grabbing at her trunk, she stomps up the stairs after her parents, and Harry shakes his head.

"You idiot," Harry says disapprovingly, "She doesn't take all that well to being teased like that. Too physical."

"So I've seen," George says hoarsely, and Fred laughs at him freely. Arthur sympathetically pats George's back, and Molly just makes her way over, pulling Harry into a hug: it's a much less aggressive greeting than the twins', and Harry relaxes into it, letting Molly hug him tightly. Harry gives Ginny, Ron and Percy a wave in comparison, but Percy seems to still be getting over the shock of seeing his brothers tackle another boy to the ground. Ron's arms are crossed over his chest, a scowl pulling at his face, and Ginny just seems to be enjoying the chaos.

Harry likes that about her.

"You want to carry my trunk upstairs, Fred?" Harry asks with a little raise of his eyebrows, and the older boy gives a mocking little bow.

"Mr Potter, I would be honoured," Fred says mockingly, grabbing Harry's trunk, and Harry grabs Hedwig's cage, letting her out. She decides to settle on George's shoulder, and he lets out a put-upon sigh as he follows his brother and Harry up the stairs. As soon as the door is shut behind them, Hedwig settles on top of her cage, and Fred and George throw themselves onto Harry's bed. "What did you want to know, then?"

"Everything you know about Sirius Black," Harry answers immediately, and the twins share a glance. They're taking Harry's demand seriously, though, and he can see the both of them mulling over the details they're aware of before they answer.

"Not much," George admits. "Dad said we had to be careful when we got back, and that he was really a risk."

"We heard him and Bill saying to Percy that he wasn't to let you wander off on your own without an adult behind you, though," Fred adds, and Harry groans, hiding his face in his hands. "He's head boy now, Harry, with all his adult responsibilities: he's probably got tucking you into bed at night on the top of his to-do list. What do you know about him?"

"Only what was in the Prophet," Harry answers with a shrug of his shoulders. "That's why I was hoping you'd know something." There's a knock on the door, followed immediately by the door opening, and Hermione steps in.

"We could have been naked!" Fred protests. "You're supposed to wait before you come in."

"Oh, shush," Hermione says, and she looks to Harry, "Mum and Dad are ready to go for books and clothes. You coming?"

"Yeah, sure," Harry says, nodding his head. "Have you guys got all your stuff yet?"

"Mum's splitting us into two groups. Us two, Dad and Percy are going around tomorrow, and Ginny, Mum and Ron are going around today. It's almost like she doesn't trust us," George says, and Hermione hmphs at him. Harry frowns at her as they begin to make their way down the stairs, but he doesn't actually ask any questions until they're walking to Flourish and Blotts.

"What's up with you and George?" Harry asks, and Hermione glances at him, frowning.

"What do you mean?" she asks sharply, and Harry can see she's a bit touchy about the subject, so he decides to back off.

"Nothing, nothing," Harry says, spreading his hands innocently, and they follow Mr and Mrs Granger towards the bookshop.

* * *

Harry slips carefully past Tom's front desk as he comes back into the Leaky Cauldron on Sunday afternoon, exiting into the Muggle side of London before Percy can follow him. Percy, true to Fred and George's word, had been watching Harry like a hawk the entire weekend, and by now Harry is more than tired of it - he can only hope he doesn't get the same treatment once he's at Hogwarts.

He walks a few streets away, slipping into a charity shop and beginning to browse. After weeks of solitude in Little Whinging, doing any and all shopping on his own and having time to just browse at leisure, it had been annoying to have the Grangers and the Weasleys telling him where to go and when.

Harry picks up a few Muggle paperbacks, and then he begins to browse through the records. He only ends up picking up a few compilation albums, though, and he pays at the counter just a few minutes before the shop closes its doors. He settles his purchases in a plastic bag before moving outside, taking a shortcut back to the Leaky Cauldron through an alleyway.

"Harry," he turns, staring at Black where he stands, shivering, in the middle of the little street.

"Why do you keep following me?" Harry demands. "You were one of Voldemort's followers, weren't you? A Death Eater?" Black shakes his head, letting out a little noise.

"Just wanted to check you'd bought some Boney M.," Black says, and then lets out a ridiculous laugh, tossing back his head. He sounds like he's been gargling broken glass, and Harry can't help but wince at the awful sound, despite Black's obvious humour. "I wasn't a Death Eater. Neve a Death Eater - he was."

"Who was?"

"The rat."

"What rat?"

"He's-"

"He's at Hogwarts, yeah, I know," Harry finishes, frowning at the older man. There must be something he can do - the man just seems damaged, not dangerous, and Harry doesn't want to just leave him to wander up to Hogwarts. "Look-" There's a clatter as a cat jumps onto a bin up the road, and Sirius flinches wildly, running away at speed. Just before he turns off the alley, Harry sees him morph, hitting the ground on four paws, and he can't help but stare after him.

No wonder he broke out of Azkaban. The man's an Animagus.

* * *

"You shouldn't have stayed up all night," Hermione says disapprovingly as they climb onto the Express, and Harry sighs. Even had he tried to lie in bed, he doesn't think he would have slept in the silence of Leaky Cauldron, so he'd stayed up the whole night playing cards with Fred and George.

"You shouldn't have bought a cat when you were meant to get an owl," Harry returns, and Hermione frowns at him as she sets Crookshanks down in the compartment, letting him clamber up onto one of the seats. Harry lies down across from him, setting Hedwig's empty cage on the floor, and Crookshanks immediately changes his mind: he launches his fat, bandy-legged body across the room, landing heavily on Harry's chest, and he groans.

"You shouldn't complain," Hermione says, popping their trunks up on the shelves and settling down on the floor, a stack of books beside her. "He loves you."

"I can feel that," Harry says half-heartedly, patting Crookshanks' head. "All two stone of it."

"He doesn't weigh two stone!"

"He will if you keep feeding him chicken."

"Oh, go to sleep!" Harry chuckles, closing his eyes: he strokes Crookshanks' back absently as the big, flat-faced monster purrs on top of him. Crookshanks' heavy weight is completely different to the occasional dainty step of Winston over Harry's pillow, but he doesn't really mind. The cat obviously means well, and Harry's glad to see Hermione's found a pet that suits her so much. "Are you worried about him? Black? I heard what Mr Weasley said to you at the station, about how you should be careful, about how you shouldn't seek him out."

"Don't worry, Hermione," Harry lies, "I'm not going to do anything of the sort.


	41. Year Three: The Empty Knight

Harry is stirred from sleep when Hermione gently shakes him up, and Harry glances blearily up at her. Hermione's now dressed in her school robes, her hair tied at her neck, and he glances around. Crookshanks' weight has moved from his chest to his feet, and outside the train the sun is beginning to go down: in the distance, Harry can see the lights of Hogsmeade, and he shifts himself up, rubbing at his eyes and gently pushing Hermione's cat off his legs.

"Thanks," he murmurs, making his way past her to go and change into his robes, and then he settles across from her. "You get much reading done?"

"I've nearly finished Slytherin's Secrets," Hermione says, holding up the book. Its cover is a deep green leather, and in silver letters on its spine Harry sees the words Lindon Sartorius. "It's really good, Harry, even better than A Serpentine History. They found out so much around the castle last year - and look!" She leans forwards, pointing to the dedication near the front leaf, and there it says,

With special thanks to Harry Potter, without

whom this book could never have existed.

"He sent me a copy in the summer, when it was published," Harry admits, "But I haven't read it yet." Harry had made his way through a fair few books that summer, but for entirely sentimental reasons, he'd been saving Slytherin's Secrets for when he could actually lie in his bed or sit in the Slytherin library to enjoy it: there's something about the idea that just appeals to him. "You hungry?"

"Extremely," Hermione says, reaching up and dropping her books into her trunk before latching it shut. "Dad's cooking is great, but he can't match the food at Hogwarts." Harry chuckles, and he pulls Crookshanks' basket down, gesturing for the cat to climb inside. Crookshanks does so, but only with a whining grumble and a slow gait, and Harry shuts the basket's gate behind him. "Don't worry, Crookshanks, you'll have the run of the castle, soon."

"Along with the hundred other cats in the castle." Harry and Hermione step out of their carriage, heading towards the train's door, "Do you think he'll be territorial?"

"I hope not," Hermione says quietly, a little worry on her face, "Magical cats and owls are meant to be much happier with sharing roosts and territory, because they're bred to have so much more intelligence and awareness, but he could pack a mean punch if he wanted to."

"Bit like his mistress, really, then," Harry says, and Hermione sticks her tongue out at him, making him laugh. "What are they?" The black-robed figures stand - no, hover - at the gates of Hogwarts, two of them illuminated by the moonlight, and he can see more of them on the path up the hill and scattered around Hogsmeade.

"Dementors," Hermione answers, giving a shiver. "A few of them checked out the train, but you were asleep." Harry connects the floating spectres with the pictures of Azkaban he's seen in books, and he frowns slightly. The air feels cold, bitingly so, and there's a heavy weight in the air that he suspects is from the dementors more than the chilly wind.

"The carriages are up here, children," calls Professor Flitwick as he comes down the road with a clipboard in his hand. "Up you come!" Harry and Hermione begin to walk up, but one of the dementors turns its odd head towards Harry, and Harry takes a step back, frowning at it. It only comes closer, though, and as it does Harry feels like his chest is being filled with ice water: his vision begins to darken at the edges, and he can hear the ghost of a scream- "Get away from him!" snaps Flitwick shrilly, and he comes forwards, brandishing his wand at the dementor, which shifts right back from him. "How dare you? Does he look like Sirius Black to you!?"

The dementor glides off, and Flitwick's nostrils flare behind his beard as he glares after it.

"You alright, Potter?"

"I'm fine, sir," Harry says.

"Horrible monsters, these bloody dementors. As if we can't protect you quite adequately from Black ourselves - could never cast a good charm, that one. The only damned spell he could manage was a Permanent-" Flitwick seems to realize who he's ranting to, and he presses his lips together, waving for Hermione and Harry to head up to the carriages.

"I think he's right," Harry murmurs, and Hermione nods as they clamber into a carriage. "Alright, Ginny?"

"Hi, Harry!" Ginny says, shifting over slightly so Hermione can sit beside her. "This is my friend, Luna Lovegood. Luna, this is Hermione Granger and Harry Potter, the man himself." Harry sits next to Luna Lovegood, who is blond-haired and wide-eyed: she seems to examine Harry for a few moments, her blue eyes seemingly impossibly deep, and then she smiles. She has a pretty smile, Harry thinks, but there's something odd about it - as if she knows about a thousand things that you don't.

"Nice to meet you," she says sweetly, "I believe you've written to my father, Harry."

"Oh, Xenophilius Lovegood," Harry nods his head, doing his best to ignore the horrified look Ginny shoots him, "He's your dad?"

"Yes," Luna says, leaning back in her seat and peering out of the carriage window. "He said you sounded rather an odd boy."

"Did he now?" Harry asks, finding the idea a little amusing - he'd only written Lovegood once, when he'd read a reference to the Quibbler in the Prophet and wanted to ask what exactly it was about. Lovegood's response had been... Well. Harry had elected not to take out a subscription, and the man had struck him as a bit mad. "Well. Is the magazine going alright?"

"Oh, it's selling just fine," Luna answers distractedly. "I do hope they've got some parsnips at dinner tonight."

* * *

There are parsnips at dinner that night. Harry turns to show his plate of them to Luna, who's sat behind him on the next table, and she beams, showing her plate in response. The main difference between their two plates, of course, is that Harry's plate has other things on it too. "Have you read Slytherin's Secrets yet, Harry?" Theo asks when Harry turns back around, and he shakes his head.

"I've been saving it." Theo gives a little laugh, rubbing the back of his neck.

"Me too."

"Me three," admits Daphne from across the table, and Harry laughs, shaking his head.

"Hermione just read most of it on the train, but there's a certain..." Harry trails off, trying to think of the right word.

"Romance?" Daphne offers.

"Irony?" comes Theodore's suggestion, but Harry shakes his head to both.

"Magic," Harry decides, "To choosing to read it here." They settle into their usual conversation after that, chattering back and forth - Draco is going to try out for the Quidditch team this year, and Blaise Zabini's mother is getting married again during the Christmas Holidays, apparently. At the end of dinner, Dumbledore stands to address the students, and they stop their conversation to look his way.

"You have no doubt noticed the new faces amongst our staff," Dumbledore says, standing at his lectern, and he gestures to his right, "This is our new Defence Against The Dark Arts teacher, Professor Remus Lupin." Lupin is about the same age as Snape, Harry guesses, but even though he's not as ugly he's prematurely aged - there are lines on his face and his hair is going grey, and he looks... Well. Frankly, the man looks ill. "And taking over the Care of Magical Creatures staff position is Professor Gladys Gudgeon." Gudgeon is a lady in her early sixties, blond hair trimmed into a neat bob around her head: her robes and hat are lilac, and she wears lipstick of a similar shade.

"She's a bit different to Kettleburn, isn't she?" Draco says quietly as Dumbledore continues to talk, and Harry nods his head. She's a dainty looking woman, and she reminds Harry a bit of the Muggle Princess Diana - much older, obviously, but with the same sort of grace and poise to her. Harry thinks about her as they make their way down to the Slytherin common room - she doesn't really look like the sort of woman who embraces magical creatures, in all honesty, but maybe he'll think differently once he sees her in action.

Harry walks with the other third years down towards the Slytherin common room, but one of the suits of armour steps in front of his path. Harry stops short, staring up at it and glancing behind him at the other Slytherins, who seem equally puzzled. He knows that the suits of armours move around now and then, but they don't normally do it in sight of the students, and his one is standing right in the middle of the corridor, as if it doesn't want them to pass by.

"Uh, excuse me?" Harry says to the suit of armour, and it slowly raises the mace it holds in his hand, wielding it over Harry's head. His eyes widen behind the glass of his specs, and he dodges just before the empty knight slams its mace down where Harry's head had been a second before. Harry scrambles down the corridor as the suit of armour slowly turns, facing Harry. It walks slowly down the hall, its feet making loud, clanking sounds on the floor as it moves, and Harry keeps on moving, doing his best to get out of the thing's way.

"Potter?" comes Frank's voice from down the hall.

"Help, please!" Harry replies as he rushes out from under the mace again, and Frank runs forwards, glancing between the suit of armour and Harry: Frank is Slytherin's head prefect, now, with Afifa having finished her N.E.W.T.s last year, and he steps between Harry and the empty knight without any fear at all.

"Reducto!" he yells, and he shields Harry behind him as the armour explodes outwards, bits of gauntlet and chest plate clanging against the walls. "You alright, Harry?"

"Yeah," Harry says, and he leans to look to the other third years, who nod their heads to say they're alright. Frank keeps Harry close to him as they make their way into the common room, and he sends one of the new prefects to go and tell Snape what had happened. Blaise is sprawled on Harry's mattress when he gets into his dormitory, and Theodore is sat beside Draco on the other bed; pushing the door closed, Harry ignores Blaise, beginning to unpack his things.

"You know what that was about, don't you, Harry?" Draco asks as Harry rifles through his trunk, pushing his tent aside to pull out his record player and his records.

"Why don't you enlighten me, Draco?" Harry asks, doing his best to be sardonic: he's a little shaken, truth be told, but he doesn't want to display that to the other Slytherin boys. Blaise puts out his hands, and Harry drops his stack of records into the other boy's grasp, letting him curiously glance through Harry's ten-piece collection. He doesn't normally unpack the night of his arrival, but Harry's too full of energy to sit down right now, and he doesn't want to laze like Draco and Blaise.

"Sirius Black," Draco says, and Harry turns his head, glancing at the other boy with interest. "He wants you dead - that's why he escaped Azkaban. It was him that betrayed your parents to the Dark Lord." Harry keeps on shelving his books, but it's done absently, with no semblance of order, and he keeps his gaze on Draco. He's ecstatic to be the centre of attention, Harry can see, but he doesn't want to take the piss out of him for it just now - he just wants Draco to keep talking. "He and your father were good friends at school, Father told me, and they were friends with Pettigrew, too. After he betrayed your parents to the Dark Lord, and he had killed them both, Black sought Pettigrew out - he didn't kill those Muggles out of chance. They were in the blast radius when he blew Pettigrew up. He must have enchanted that suit of armour to kill you."

Draco is taking pleasure in regaling the story, but he's not getting the rise out of Harry that he wants, Harry can see: Harry's merely made more curious by the story, and he's not at all angry. He'd seen Black, after all, and the man had been utterly mad: he wouldn't have the faculties to Summon a feather right now, let alone enchant a suit of armour to come after Harry. The idea of Black, desperately asking after Harry's health and obsessively searching for a rat is at odds with the image of him as a bloodthirsty traitor, and Harry frowns slightly, considering the disparity.

"Why did he do it?" Harry asks. "Do you know?" Draco seems thrown by the question, and stares at Harry blankly.

"Why did he do what? Betray your parents?" Theodore asks.

"Yeah," Harry says, nodding his head. "I mean, there must have been some reason, right? What did he say at trial?"

"There wasn't a trial," Blaise says dryly, handing Harry his Michael Jackson record. "Black was mad when they caught him - he just laughed and laughed. They sent him straight to Azkaban. It wasn't as if they were short of evidence." Harry frowns, stacking his records together beside his turntable, and then he drops onto the bed, over Blaise's legs.

"You seem a bit calm," Theodore points out, and Harry nods his head.

"No sense taking it personally, is there?" Harry asks. He's not going to talk to the Slytherin lads about his meeting Black, so he only needs to brush off the concerns about him. "I feel that it's quite in vogue to try and kill me."

"Vogue?" Whoops. It's a Muggle magazine, isn't it? Vogue?

"Er," Harry waves his hand dismissively. "Fashionable. Popular. It doesn't matter. What electives did you take, guys?" They settle around, beginning to chat about more normal things, and Draco is even relatively pleasant to Winston when he clambers up onto Draco's knees to go to sleep.


	42. Year Three: The Boggart

"Well," Harry murmurs, chopping the daisy stems as neatly as he can as Hermione crushes some newt's eyes with a mortar and pestle. "She was, uh. Nice."

"Yeah," Hermione says, "And she did seem to know what she was talking about, too." Professor Gudgeon's classroom had been neatly decorated, with simple pictures of flowers on the walls, and she'd laid out a neat syllabus for them: Lesser Fae, Nymphs, Magical Equines, Magical Snakes and Magical Birds. She had seemed focused and organized, but she was still... "She was a bit strange, wasn't she?"

"Really strange," Harry agrees. It wasn't anything he could put his finger on - she just seemed to zone out every once in a while, and when Lavender Brown had mentioned Gilderoy Lockhart's imprisonment in Azkaban, she'd gone utterly silent for about four minutes. "Did you see the photo she had framed on her desk?"

"No," Hermione says. "Why?" Harry only got a glimpse of the photograph, but he'd seen he blond hair and the dazzling white teeth.

"I think-"

"Was this photograph, Mr Potter, of your pain relief potion?" Snape stands directly behind Hermione, scowling down at Harry, and Harry sighs.

"No," Harry says, "I don't think so, sir."

"Then discuss it later."

"Sir?" Harry asks, and Snape glances back towards him, arching one of his eyebrows. "Are you going to be continuing Duelling Club this year?" Harry can hear the intake of breath around the room, and he can feel the sudden tension as every Gryffindor and Slytherin leans forwards to listen intently to Snape's answer. Snape shows the mildest fraction of surprise on his face as he glances at the third years watching him, and then he sets his jaw.

"No, Mr Potter, I will not." There are sighs and small noises of disappointment around the room, and if anything they only seem to alarm Snape, who scowls and quickly moves to breathe down Neville Longbottom's neck. Duelling Club, once Lockhart had been dropped from the idea, had been really amazing, and Harry had learned a lot through the course of the year, but it's a disappointment to hear Snape drop it. He wonders, vaguely, if he'd be able to get Lucius Malfoy to convince him otherwise - they're friends, after all, and Harry suspects if he phrased it in a way that benefitted Draco, Lucius would want to engineer the club's return.

It's certainly an idea.

* * *

"What did Malfoy say about Duelling Club?" Hermione asks, craning her neck to see the letter the Malfoys' eagle owl, Hedone, had just delivered. Harry sighs, passing it over to her, and she holds it in one hand, holding her toast in the other. Her eyes scan the page quickly, and she sighs. "Of course he already asked."

"I don't know why I bothered," Harry says, folding the letter and slipping it into his bag. "There's no getting Snape to do a thing he doesn't want to do. Maybe we could get Lupin to do it, if he can cast a few spells without fainting."

"Harry!" Hermione scolds him, and she sets down the uneaten crust of her toast on the edge of her plate, wiping her hands on a napkin. "Don't be horrible."

"What do you think is wrong with him?" Harry asks, and Hermione shrugs her shoulders, shaking her head. They have their first class with Lupin this afternoon, and Harry's interested to see his teaching style - he can't possibly be as weird as Gudgeon, anyway. "Are you really going to just eat toast for lunch?"

"I haven't just had toast, and I'm not very hungry, alright?" Harry looks at her skeptically, and Hermione leans forwards, lowering her voice a little to say, "If you must know, my stomach hurts!" For a second, Harry's completely thrown by the statement, and then he understands, and rolls his eyes.

"Just get some Auxilian Elixir from Madam Pomfrey. That's what Snape brews it for." Hermione's cheeks darken slightly, and she huffs out a noise. "Hermione-"

"I don't need a potion. I'll eat a banana and I'll be fine."

"You're such an idiot-"

"I'm not an idiot, Harry, but I'm not in agony, and there's no need for us to use magic for everything-"

"It's just like taking paracetamol!"

"I wouldn't take paracetamol for this either!"

"What are you two arguing about?" Ron Weasley demands as he sits down a little further up the table, late for lunch, as usual. Hermione's cheeks darken a little further, and Harry tries to stifle a little laugh. "What? What?" Weasley's own cheeks colour, and he seems to have taken Harry's chuckle to mean that they're arguing about him, the utter idiot.

"Nothing, Ron," Hermione snaps, glaring at Harry, who only laughs a little louder. "Come on, let's go up to class."

"Fine, fine," Harry says, and he shoulders his bag, following Hermione up and out of the hall. "You have your first Arithmancy class today, right?"

"From four until six," Hermione agrees, seeming glad of the change of subject. "I'm glad Professor Vector agreed to teach me."

"Well, three subjects isn't as bad as trying to take five at once," Harry says. "You regret not taking them?" Hermione hums, shifting her head from side to side as she considers the question. She'd desperately wanted to take all of the electives offered, but she'd eventually settled on just Ancient Runes and Care of Magical Creatures - after speaking to McGonagall, though, she'd been allowed to take up Arithmancy out of class hours.

"Well, Divination is a fascinating subject, I'm sure, but Lavender and Parvati were talking about it, and it does sound... Well, to be honest, it sounds a bit wishy-washy to me." It seems to pain Hermione to admit it, and Harry nods his head. Some of the Slytherin lads had talked about Divination, but none of them had really been interested in taking it, and Harry is fairly certain Tracey Davis is the only Slytherin third year who'd opted for it.

"And Muggle Studies would have been a bit redundant."

"But I could have studied the Muggle world from the wizarding point of view!"

"You can do that by reading books, though," Harry points out, and Hermione sighs her resignation before reluctantly nodding her agreement. When they reach the defence corridor, Lupin is dragging a wardrobe into the classroom with a surprising strength to his movements, pushing it up beside the desk. He'd redecorated the classroom with new images of different magical creatures, but on the centre wall remains the framed article about Lockhart. "I guess he couldn't get it down," he murmurs. "Or he decided to leave it up." Hermione chuckles.

"Hello, Harry, Hermione - could you two start moving these desks out of the way? Just pop them to the side of the room."

"Yes, sir," Harry says, and he and Hermione get to work, pushing the first row aside and then levitating the other rows to stack on top of them, leaving a clear space in the middle of the room. Harry's not used to being addressed by his first name, not by teachers, but he doesn't complain: he just files it for reference. Lupin's face looks a little familiar, though, and he frowns at the man slightly.

"Something wrong?" Lupin asks.

"I recognize you," Harry says, but he can't think where from. "Have you been in the paper?" Lupin laughs, and when he smiles a few of the lines disappear from his face: he looks more his age with a grin on his face. There's something sad about that.

"No, not that I'm aware of."

"How old are you, sir? Like, thirty-something?"

"Thirty three," Lupin answers simply, and he's smiling, as if being asked random questions by thirteen-year-olds is his idea of a good time.

"Did you go to school with my parents? Maybe I saw you in a photo." Lupin's face seems to pale slightly, and Harry furrows his brow; Lupin draws his hand over his jaw in a slightly nervous motion, thumbing over his thin moustache, and then he nods his head.

"I did, yes. I was in the same year as your father, and the same house." He seems worried all of a sudden, the smile going weak and melting off his features, but Harry has no intention of drawing back and letting him be. He has things he needs to know.

"So you knew Sirius Black, then?" Harry queries.

"Pardon?"

"My father was friends with Sirius Black, right? You were too, I guess?" There's something in Lupin's face that Harry doesn't like the look of - he seems angry, or upset, or- Threatened. Threatened is the word, and as Lupin flusters, obviously trying to find an answer, Harry says, "Guess you were lucky he went after Pettigrew before he went after you, sir, or we wouldn't be having this conversation." Remus' eyes flare with anger, hurt, his gaze flickering from Harry's face to the Slytherin crest on his robes, and Harry knows he's onto something.

"Go and get the rest of the class into the room, would you, Harry?" Lupin says stiffly, setting his jaw, and Harry gives him a smile.

"Of course, sir. Happy to help," Harry says with faux brightness, and he goes to get the rest of the class into the room. Lupin does his best to hide his newly sour mood as he begins to teach, and Harry has to admit he's a good teacher - he's bright and engaging, and he truly knows his subject matter: he's a far cry from Lockhart.

"Now, today you'll be facing a Boggart," Lupin says, gesturing to the wardrobe he'd set up before his desk. "Boggarts morph themselves into that which their opponent fears most: we will be using a spell called Ridikkulus. It forces a Boggart into a more humorous form, as laughter is confusing to the Boggart." Harry raises his hand, and he sees the hesitation in Lupin's face before he nods his head.

"Why?" Harry asks. "I mean, I can see the use of fear as a defence mechanism, but why does laughter confuse a Boggart?"

"It's simply the opposite of the behaviour it expects," Lupin says simply. "Remember, Boggarts have no wish to prey on their victims - they merely wish to keep them away." He claps his hands, giving his class a grin. "Now, who would like to go first?" No one in the room seems keen, so Harry raises his hand once more, and Lupin presses his lips together, obviously reluctant, but then he nods his head. "Alright, Harry, up you come."

After a few repetitions of the spell, Harry stands before the wardrobe, wand wielded before him. He's fairly certain of what he'll see - Voldemort, maybe, or- No. No, he remembers the feeling of the dementor leaning over him, freezing his insides and making him shudder.

Setting his jaw, he tries to think of a way to make the dementor funny. Have someone drop out of its cloak, maybe, or leave it just a plastic skeleton with a cloak on...

"Ready, Harry?"

"Ready, Professor," Harry says determinedly, and Lupin opens the wardrobe's doors. The dementor glides slowly from between its doors, focused on Harry as it raises up its clawed, decaying hands, and Harry tries to think of how to make the thing look funny, but all he can think of is his freezing skin, his shaking wand hand, and he can hear the ghost of that scream again as the dementor comes closer, closer still. Harry's vision is going dark at the edges as the thing comes closer, but he's not going to faint or scream or die, he's determined not to, he- "Bombarda!"

The Boggart lets out a harsh, guttural scream, falling back onto the ground and barely crawling over the wooden boards, pieces of black cloth fluttering into the air as Harry breathes heavily, staring at it. His vision keeps dimming, and he feels himself stumble back: strong hands grasp at the back of his knees and his back, and Harry blearily finds himself being placed in one of the chairs at the edge of the classroom.

"What are you going to do next, Goyle?" Harry asks, trying to force his eyes to focus, "Carry me over the threshold?" Goyle huffs out a half-laugh.

"See, Granger? He's fine."

"Shut up, Malfoy, else I'll hex your hair to look like Snape's!" Harry blinks rapidly, trying to get rid of the darkness at the edges of his vision, and he feels Remus lean over him.

"Are you alright?"

"I'm fine," Harry says firmly, "Sorry. The dementor- I acted on instinct." Lupin is staring down at him, his gaze concentrated on Harry's face: concern is obvious in the professor's eyes, and Harry files that away for future reference. It might just be his devotion to teaching, but this is his first week at Hogwarts - it seems a bit unlikely.

"Bombarda was your instinct?"

"Well, to be honest, sir," Harry says, "I didn't think a Tickling Charm would work too well. They don't seem like a bundle of laughs, dementors." Laughter echoes around the Gryffindors and the Slytherins - even Ron Weasley has a little grin on his face - but no one laughs louder than Lupin himself, who seems relieved that Harry's cracked a joke. Harry pulls himself up and out of the chair, shoving Blaise away when he offers Harry his hand, and they all look to Lupin.

"Well, Harry's incapacitated our Boggart, so... Why don't we learn that Explosive Charm? It's an easy one to learn." It's a fun lesson, in honesty - Lupin gets everyone casting the charm, and then he conjures targets that zoom around the room, testing their ability to cast quickly and accurately. Everyone is laughing as they leave the classroom, but Lupin calls him back. "Harry? Can I have a word?"

"Sir, I've got Transfiguration."

"I'll send a note with you when you go to Professor McGonagall," Lupin assures him, and Harry waves for Draco and the others to go onto Transfiguration without him. Harry pushes the door shut behind them, and he turns to face Lupin, who looks like he's picking his words carefully.

"Sorry about the Black comment," Harry says in a light tone, but by no means is he insincere, "No one will tell me a thing about him, and I wanted to see how you'd react." His moment of honesty is well-rewarded: Lupin peers down at him, seeming utterly taken aback by what Harry's said to him. "It was nasty of me, Professor. I really am sorry."

"You've seen me?" Lupin asks quietly, "In photos of your father?"

"You and Pettigrew, I think. None of Black - I think people were careful not to send me pictures with him in." Lupin watches Harry for a long few moments.

"The dementor affected you strongly."

"I heard a scream. A woman's scream. My mother's, I think, just before Voldemort killed her. I used to have nightmares about that." Lupin swallows, his Adam's apple obviously bobbing in his throat, and Harry says, "You knew her too, huh?" Lupin sighs, setting his jaw for a moment.

"Are you always this manipulative?" he demands, and Harry smiles at him.

"You always this easy to read?"

"You look like your father," Lupin murmurs.

"Yeah," Harry agrees. "People always say so. But I've got Mum's eyes. Look, do you actually need something, or...?" Lupin gives a rueful little huff of laughter, running his hand through his tired, greying hair, and he looks down at Harry for a few moments.

"I can teach you a charm to protect yourself against dementors: the Patronus Charm. If you'd like to learn it." Harry looks at Lupin for a few moments, at his tired face: he looks so old, for someone so young, and Harry wonders again what's wrong with him, what makes him look so obviously sick. He doesn't ask, of course - he'll push a few of Lupin's buttons, but he won't go that far.

"I'd like that, Professor," Harry says quietly, "Thanks for the offer."

"You're like your mother," Lupin says as he opens the door, gesturing for Harry to go. Harry frowns at him, tilting his head slightly, and when Lupin smiles it's nostalgic. "She could be manipulative too, if she needed to be."

"Really?" Harry asks: the idea fills him with a sudden warmth. He's barely been told anything about his mother, over the year - all her friends seemed to have died during the war, and no one ever writes him much about her.

"Really. She had a subtlety and a way with people James often liked - he was charming, but charm will only get you so far." Lupin writes a quick note on a piece of parchment, handing it to him, and Harry gives the man a little wave as he hurries up the corridor to Transfiguration. He's nice, Harry thinks, this Remus J. Lupin, and not nearly as weird as Gudgeon.

* * *

It's approaching half-past six as Harry makes his way down the path towards Hagrid's hut. Hermione is finishing up with Sinistra, and he just wants to drop in and say hello to Hagrid before the week is out. He doesn't want the man to feel neglected, after all - Hagrid is one of the most kind, gentle people in Harry's life, even if he is a bit mad. Harry glances to the Whomping Willow, which is moving gracefully in the wind, and then he looks to the shadow at its feet.

Harry frowns, but he stares at the shadow of the big, black dog. Its eyes glow amber in the moonlight, and, slowly, Harry raises his hand, giving it a little wave. Black is mad, but he can't be that mad, right?

The dog barks, giving a little wag of its tail, and it bounds back slightly in an unmistakable invitation to follow it. Harry glances to the light flickering in Hagrid's hut.

Well, he can always see Hagrid tomorrow morning.

Harry runs off the path, following the dog as it runs closer to the tree. It taps a knot near the Willow's base, and for a few moments the branches stop their motion - it's a good trick, and Harry will be sure to remember it. He follows the dog to the edge of the tree, slipping into the little hollow underneath it, and he lets out a little, surprised sound as he finds himself in a tunnel.

"Where does this lead?" he asks, but Black just barks and runs off down the corridor. Well, Harry thinks. No point in turning back now. He follows the dog further down, rushing to keep up with him.


	43. Year Three: The Shrieking Shack

Harry climbs up the little set of steps after Black, and he watches with fascination as Black morphs into a human form. He stands up straight, and he smiles at Harry, putting out his arms, but Harry steps back.

"Sorry, not quite at the hugging point yet," Harry says, and Black looks hurt. Harry doesn't think pointing out they've only met three times will make much difference to him, given that he's obviously crazed, so he says, "You should have a shower first." Black seems to accept this as reason not to hug him, and Harry looks curiously around the room around them. The room around them looks as if someone had released a hundred kneazles into it: the wallpaper is cracked and ripped, parts of the wood panelling torn from the wall, and there are pieces of damaged furniture strewn all around, each covered with a layer of dust.

Black begins to walk up the stairs, and Harry follows him, watching from the doorway as he enters a room and clambers onto a magnificently red, four poster bed. Its curtains are ripped and torn, and some of the mattress' stuffing bulges from tears in its surface, but it too is thickly blanketed with dust. Black lies like a dog, Harry sees, folding his body in on itself.

"Where are we?" Harry asks, sitting slowly down on the edge of the bed, and Black peers up at him.

"Shrieking Shack," he says, as if it's obvious.

"The Shrieking Shack?" Harry repeats blankly.

"Yeah," Black replies simply. "You good, Harry?"

"I'm fine," Harry answers, frowning down at Black. Could this man have killed thirteen people? Probably. But had he? "What about you?"

"I'm good. It's nice here." Harry glances around the room, at the splintering floors and ripped doorframes.

"Well," Harry says. "Compared to Azkaban, I guess." Black laughs, the sound as grating and ugly as before, and Harry offers him an awkward smile. He doesn't know what he's supposed to do with Black, but he definitely can't report him to anyone on the staff - he'll be brought before the dementors immediately, and Harry doesn't want to see that happen. "Are you staying here?"

"Mmm," Black says distractedly, playing over his lip with the knuckle of his index finger. "'Til I get the rat."

"What does the rat look like?" Harry asks, and Black leans back, peering at Harry.

"Brown. Fat. Missing a finger."

"Which one?" Black holds up his left hand, holding up his pinky finger, and Harry nods his head. Do rats even have fingers? Is that what they're called? Black looks so small, curled into the sad little ball he is, but what can Harry do? It's not like he can bring Black a house-

"Where're you going?" Black demands anxiously.

"I'll be right back, okay? I'm just gonna head up to the castle."

"Harry-"

"I'll be back in just a few minutes, I promise," Harry says, and he runs down to the tunnel again.

* * *

"Hey, Draco," Harry catches the other boy by the arm before he can go into the Great Hall, and the other boy frowns at him.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing, I just need you to cover for me, okay? Tell Frank I'm not feeling too great, and that I'm down in the dorms." Draco's blond brows furrow, and he stares at Harry suspiciously.

"Why?"

"I'll pay you back," Harry promises. "Come on, Draco, just tell him."

"You'll pay me back threefold," Draco says firmly, but then he gives a nod of his head, and Harry runs as fast as he can down to the Slytherin common room.

* * *

"Mr Black?" he calls as he enters into the Shack, and he makes his way up the stairs. Black is in the same position as he was when Harry left, and Harry gestures for him to come downstairs. Black follows him cautiously, his lips pressed together, and he flinches when Harry steps too hard on one of the stairs - but then, Harry's only spent five minutes around dementors, and if he'd spent twelve years of the same, he probably wouldn't even be alive right now. "Come on, help me." Harry drops the tent's bag on the ground, beginning to set out its poles and pegs, slamming the pegs hard between the boards of the floor.

Black doesn't help. He stands to the side, watching Harry with perplexity and a little fear on his features, until the whole tent is set up. Harry gestures for him to follow, and he steps inside the tent. Black hovers in the tent's doorway, peering in. His bare feet touch the carpet, and he lets out a soft, quiet sigh.

"Look, I just used this in the summer, but you can have it, okay? Look, there's a bath through here-" Harry pushes open the door, and Black almost creeps forwards, as if he's terrified a dementor is going to jump out of the enchanted shower head. "Have a shower, okay? There are towels in there, and this bath-robe that came with the tent, it's too big for me. I can get your clothes back to the castle, wash them - you can't keep wearing them like that."

Black is staring down at him, his lip quivering, and then he stumbles forwards, grabbing Harry and pulling him tightly against his body. He stinks of filth and sweat and dried blood, but he holds Harry as if Harry's the only thing anchoring him to the world: Harry hears the man let out a sob against his hair, and he stays still, awkwardly patting Black's back.

"Harry," Black whispers in the tiniest, softest, hoarsest voice.

"Yeah?"

"You're a good boy." Black's hand cups the back of Harry's head, clutching at him, and he draws away, rubbing roughly over his eyes with his filthy, filthy sleeve. "You're a good boy." He staggers into the bathroom, closing the door behind him, and Harry hears the water start to run. There's a loud howl from the room, and for a second Harry grabs his wand, wondering if Black had got a shock, but the howl devolves into crazed laughter, and then sobs, and Harry connects the dots. He realizes.

It's probably the first time he's had a hot shower in over a decade.

* * *

Black looks utterly ridiculous in the bright yellow bathrobe that had come free with Harry's tent, but who wouldn't? He slips slowly into the main room of the tent, and Harry stares at him. Black's hair comes down to his mid-back, wet and unbrushed, and with the dirt washed away from his face he looks- Well. He doesn't look all that much younger, in truth, but he certainly looks better.

"The bath," Black says, and he laughs. "It's- uh-" He trails off, gaze focusing on the floor.

"Dirty?" Harry offers.

"Ha! Yes. Very." Black touches his face, feeling the thick hair of his beard, and Harry holds out his own wand for the other to take. Black stares down at it, uncomprehending, but Harry had decided while Black was in the shower that he'd trust him.

"I can't do it," Harry says quietly, "I've got the Trace, and we're out of the castle's boundaries, right?" Black nods, slowly, and he takes Harry's wand, stepping outside of the tent. Harry watches him from his seat beside the coffee table, as Black trims his hair and beard with a shaking hand. The hair that falls slowly to the ground is thin, dry and unhealthy looking, but when Black is clean-shaven he looks like a new man.

He shakes his head like a dog, throwing off the hair that clings to him and the yellow fabric of the robe, and then he moves into tent again, holding Harry's wand out to him. Harry takes it back, and he looks up at Black for a few long moments.

"I need to go back to the castle," he says. "They'll miss me if I'm gone too long, but I'll come see you tomorrow night. I'll bring you some clothes, some real clothes. You'll be warm in here, and I can bring you some food - there's a half bag of pasta in the kitchen, and a few cans of stuff-"

"Pasta?" Black repeats, as if Harry's just offered him a whole Christmas banquet.

"Yeah, but you'll have to cook it yourself. Is that okay?" Black hesitates, looking back towards the simple stove in the kitchen. "Uh, don't worry, don't worry. I can stay another half an hour - I haven't eaten yet, anyway." Black sags in obvious relief, and it hurts just to look at him. Harry doesn't think this man betrayed his parents, just can't believe it as he looks at the sad and broken person Sirius Black seems to be, and Harry can't help the heavy sympathy that weighs him down.

"Thank you," Black whispers. "Thank you, Harry."

* * *

It's nearing midnight when Harry creeps back into castle. Harry had eaten a little of the pasta he'd cooked, but Sirius had wolfed down two plates of it despite it being plain, and after that Black had crawled into bed, on top of the covers. He'd laid there, told Harry to go back to the castle, but Harry had begun to talk. He hadn't wanted to leave the man alone and awake, and so he'd talked - he'd told him all about being Sorted, about his fear when he came to the castle, about everything that happened when Harry was in his first year at Hogwarts.

Black had slowly drifted off, then, and Harry had taken his leave.

The castle is obscenely quiet as he makes his way into the castle, and unfortunately the common room is well-populated - it's a Friday night, after all, and a few of the seventh years are up. Harry has no chance of creeping past them, so he elbows a decorative shield on the wall, making it fall to the floor with a clatter. "Shit!" he hisses, and he pretends to be surprised when Francois Richelieu grabs him by the collar.

"Frank, come on!" Harry complains, but he doesn't try and pull himself away, letting the older boy drag him to the dormitory corridor.

"If you skip dinner, Potter, it's down to you. You're not sneaking down to the kitchens at this time of night." Frank shoves him into his and Draco's room, shutting the door behind him, and Harry breathes out a sigh of relief. The curtains are still drawn around his bed.

"Harry?" Draco asks sleepily, shifting in bed.

"It's alright, Draco, go back to sleep," Harry murmurs in a soothing voice, and he pushes back the curtains on his bed, stripping off his clothes and sliding under the covers. He can't stop his mind from reeling as he settles down under the covers, as he tries to think - where can he get food for Black? Clothes? Stuff for him to do? He falls asleep quickly, exhausted as he is, and he doesn't dream of Sirius Black.

He dreams of dementors, and women screaming, and green, green light.


	44. Year Three: Dog-Sitting

Harry eats breakfast with Hermione the next morning, the both of them settled together on the Gryffindor table. It's something Harry likes about Hogwarts in the mornings - because of the more lax nature of breakfast and lunch, the both of them being open over several hours rather than at a particular time like at dinner, one can sit wherever they like.

But Harry knows better than to ever take Hermione over to the Slytherin table to eat.

"I didn't see you at dinner last night," Hermione says, and Harry gives a small nod of his head. He trusts Hermione with every fiber of his being, but he doesn't know if he can tell her about Black. Hermione will abandon the rules in a second if she feels it necessary, but school rules and the law aside, would she believe that Black was safe? Would she believe that she could trust him, just because Harry trusts him? Does Harry trust him? He'd handed Black his wand, and Black hadn't murdered him or done him any harm, but on the chance that Black does turn out to be utterly mad, that he does try to murder him, Harry needs someone else to know. He needs Hermione there.

"Nah, I didn't go," Harry replies, and he glances up and down the Gryffindor table. It's still early in the morning, and the activity on the table is scattered; none of the other third year Gryffindors are downstairs yet, but Harry can see Percy eating alone near the top of the table, and occasionally the head boy will glance down at them. "I need to tell you something, but not here." Hermione frowns at him, concern obvious in her features, but Harry just slowly shakes his head, and she takes his meaning.

"Er- well, did you enjoy Transfiguration yesterday?"

* * *

Just as Harry and Hermione are standing to leave the great hall, the Weasley twins appear in the great hall's doorway, their matching gazes focused on Harry. They don't seem to be all that cheery - if anything, their focus is determined, and they move towards Harry.

"We need to talk to you about where you were last night, Harry," Fred says, waggling his eyebrows, and Harry stares at him. How had he and George known? Fred and George glance between Harry and Hermione, and Harry knows Fred was intentionally vague, but...

"We need to go somewhere private," Harry murmurs impatiently, and he gestures for the three of them to follow him. They walk quickly to the Astronomy Tower, and Harry finds the brick Celia Hayworth had pointed out last year, hissing a command in Parseltongue and allowing the stone to open up. Fred and George look delighted, stepping eagerly aside, and Harry shuts the entrance behind the three of them, hissing for the torches around the cupboard to light themselves.

Harry immediately drops himself onto the floor, leaning against one of the walls: the little storeroom is utterly clean of dust, and the shelves are empty, but George and Fred still each peer curiously onto every one as Hermione slowly sits down on the floor beside him.

"How did you know where I went?" Harry asks, and the twins share a glance, frowning and crossing their arms over their chests as they look down at Harry and Hermione. Harry's too tired to bargain with them this morning - he already owes Draco three favours for last night. "No favours, no swapping, no back-and-forthing. I'll be honest with you if you're honest with me." Hermione is silent, watching them all carefully, but she's being patient, Harry can see. She wants to know what all of this is about more than she wants to take control.

"Shall we tell him?" Fred asks, and George gives a slow nod of his head.

"It's worth it if we can get down to Hogsmeade another way." Harry frowns, narrowing his eyes slightly, and the twins kneel together. George pulls a piece of old parchment out of his back pocket, spreading it on the stone floor. It's an odd, old piece of blank parchment, ripped in some of its corners, and Harry raises his eyebrows, but then George taps its middle with his wand. "I solemnly swear that I am up to no good." Harry and Hermione watch in fascination as black ink bleeds up from the parchment, spreading over its surface.

"The Marauder's Map?" Hermione repeats, peering at it with interest, and then she goes silent again: there's awe on her features as a map of Hogwarts spreads over the parchment's surface, with little dots labelled individually. "Where are we?"

"They mustn't have known about this place," Fred says, shaking his head. "When they made the map, I mean, Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs: the Chamber of Secrets isn't on it either. We saw you here." Fred points to the Whomping WIllow out on the grounds, and Harry can see the passage arcing off it and off the edge of the map's boundaries, into Hogsmeade. "We've never been able to get down there, but we saw your name disappearing off the edge of the map. How did you do it?"

"It's part of a long story," Harry says, "I was about to explain to Hermione when you guys came down. Uh- look, everything I'm about to say can't leave this room, okay? I'm trusting you two, and you have to understand, this isn't just about secret passages or whatever. There's more to it than that." The twins lean back on their heels, sharing a look, and then they sit down cross-legged on the ground, nodding their heads.

"Where were you last night, Harry?" Hermione asks, and Harry sighs.

"I was walking home in Little Whinging this summer, early evening. And this bloke came up to me, a proper tramp, and I just assumed he'd ask me for a quid or something, but he didn't do that..."

* * *

Harry breathes in when he finishes telling the three of them all about Black: to their credit, Hermione and the twins had stayed utterly silent throughout his entire explanation, but Harry has no idea if that's a good sign or not. Hermione does look utterly horrified, after all, and the twins look positively solemn as they press their lips together, obviously thinking deeply.

"You really think he's innocent?" Hermione asks seriously.

"I don't know," Harry admits. "But I know he didn't set that knight on me, and I know he's not here at Hogwarts to kill me. He's obviously sick in the head, after all those years in Azkaban. I can't know for certain if he betrayed my parents or not, but I know that I don't believe he did. I don't think he can really lie properly at the moment, Hermione: what the dementors must have been like over all that time..." He trails off, giving a little shake of his head, and Hermione bites her lip.

"What's the rat?" George asks.

"No idea," Harry says, rubbing at his eyes. "Talking to him is hard, it's like getting blood out of a stone just to get him to answer a question."

"He sounds crazy," Fred says.

"He is," Harry agrees. "But I don't think it's his fault. So, from what I know... Okay, the actual story is that when my parents were in hiding, Black and this other bloke, Pettigrew, both knew where they were hiding. Apparently, Black betrayed my parents to Voldemort, and then ran off to get Pettigrew. He murdered the guy, along with a dozen Muggles, in this big explosion, and they sent him straight to Azkaban, no trial."

"Pettigrew?" George repeats suddenly, "Peter Pettigrew?"

"Yeah. Peter, that was his name. But the two of them were friends with my dad here at school - as well as Remus Lupin."

"No, no," Fred says suddenly, and he grabs at the map, turning it around and scanning the pages with urgent eyes. "Look, look. There he is." Fred jabs at the page, where the Gryffindor tower is drawn, and there's a little dot on the page: Peter Pettigrew. Harry and Hermione both lean forwards, staring at the page.

"I don't understand," Hermione says. "I thought Harry just said he was dead?"

"It's an error in the magic," George explains. "We think that when they were originally making the map, they must have used Pettigrew as an experiment to hold up the charm. He was the first one they added to the charm: when he left Hogwarts, the map mustn't have known what to do, so it just started showing old haunts of his."

"He's not really there," Fred adds, "We've looked for him a few times, and there's never been a person where his dot is on the map. But that's too big of a coincidence, right? We figured Pettigrew must have been someone they knew, or even one of them."

"How old is this map?" Hermione asks. "Maybe Black's seen it before." George gives a shrug of his shoulders.

"We don't know," Fred says. "We nicked it out of Filch's office a few years back."

"We should show it to him," Hermione says firmly. Harry glances to her, and she meets his gaze, confused. "What?"

"You believe me?" Harry asks. "You're not going to go tell McGonagall I'm harbouring a fugitive or something?"

"Don't be stupid," Hermione says sharply, "If he is innocent, he'll get the Kiss. We need proof one way or the other." Harry throws himself forwards, wrapping his arms tightly around her, and he lets out a relieved laugh against her chest. Hermione hugs him back, tightly, and when he draws back, she focuses on the map again. "Does it show Black?"

"It should, if he comes onto Hogwarts grounds," Fred says. "But it only covers the castle - it doesn't go all over Hogsmeade, and that's where the Shrieking Shack is."

"It's an amazing piece of magic," Hermione murmurs, stroking absent-mindedly over the Astronomy Tower. "So. What are we going to do now?"

"I need to bring him some clothes," Harry says. "I told him I would. And food, too. There's some cans in the cupboard of the kitchen, but they're just some tomatoes, some baked beans, stuff like that, and we almost finished the bag of dried pasta I had left last night. I didn't bother stocking it up for next summer."

"What else is in the tent?" George asks.

"Well, this bathrobe that came free with it. About four towels, two sets of bedsheets, my cousin's old radio... Other than that, it's just the furniture and the hangers in the wardrobe." Fred rubs his chin as he looks down at the map, seeming to consider the thought. "I can't order stuff in by owl."

"No," Fred agrees. "That'll be way too suspicious, even if all four of us order little things. There's no need for any of us to want a jar of spaghetti or some adult-sized robes. Well, food we'll just nick out of the kitchens. We've taken food for parties from the elves before, and they never ask any questions."

"How big is Black?" George asks. "How tall is he?"

"Not that tall," Harry says. "Maybe five foot eight, five foot seven?"

"Percy's old robes," George says firmly. "That set he was going to chuck out after his last growth spurt."

"Perfect," Fred says with a nod of his head. "We can nick his old jumpers from the bottom of his trunk, too. The fourth and fifth year ones should fit Black, and he never notices what he's missing unless it's his special quill or his glasses case." Harry looks between the two of them, taken aback.

"Are you guys really going to do this? Help me help him?"

"'Course," George says simply. "You think he's an innocent man, right, Harry? We'll stand by your stupid, serpent self. You can always trust Gred and Forge."

"Well," Hermione murmurs. "That's not strictly true." George grins at her, showing all his teeth.

"Oh, come on, Hermione. You know you love us." Hermione snorts, shaking her head, and she begins to talk rapidly, pulling a piece of parchment out of her bag and making a list of things they need to get for Black as George and Fred nod their heads, adding things to the list or thinking of solutions, and for a few long minutes Harry stays utterly quiet, shocked into silence by the gratitude, the wonder, warming his chest.

* * *

"Okay, take the bag," Fred says, handing it off to Harry, and Harry nods his head. "Make sure you stay under the cloak, okay? You don't want anyone to see you going down there."

"We're not stupid, Fred," Hermione says, and he pats her head.

"It's sweet that you think that." George laughs, but he gives her a wink.

"Good luck, guys. Don't get murdered."

"Yeah," Fred says seriously. "Because we want that map back." Harry shakes his head back as Hermione shoves George in the arm, muttering something about that's not funny, George, Fred, stop it. Harry slips the cloak over the both of them, and they creep carefully out of the castle as Fred and George push the doors open. The grass is indented under their feet as they make their way down the hill, but it springs back soon enough, and Harry tries to ignore it.

They creep under the swinging branches of the Willow, and Hermione gets out from under the cloak and into the passage first, Harry following her down. It's a long passageway, Harry realizes the second time around - last night, he'd been so focused on rushing after Black that he hadn't really considered how long he'd been running, but it truly is.

"Just up these steps," Harry says, and Hermione lets him past her. He folds up the cloak, peering into the Shrieking Shack: the lanterns in the tent are on, as golden light streams out of the tent's open flap, and he calls, "Mr Black?" Wrapped in the same yellow bathrobe as last night, Black slowly pokes his head out of the tent's entrance, and he smiles. Sleeping in a real bed must have done him the world of good - the bags under his eyes aren't quite as pronounced, and his smile seems more natural, less forced. "Me and my friend have brought some things for you."

"Friend?" Black repeats, and Harry reaches back for Hermione's hand, pulling her to come forwards.

"My name's Hermione Granger," she says, giving a little nod of her head: her grip on Harry's hand is so tight Harry wonders for a second if she's going to break some of his fingers. "It's nice to meet you." Black beams at her, and he slowly puts out his hand. His hand shakes violently in its place, but Hermione releases Harry's hand and takes Black's nonetheless, shaking it.

"Thank you," Black whispers, meeting her gaze, and he retreats back into the tent. Harry puts the bag down on the coffee table, beginning to unpack what they'd managed to get hold of that morning, and Hermione walks across the room, grabbing at Dudley's old radio from on top of the wardrobe and starting to try and tune it. "What are you doing?" Black asks.

"I think I can get you one of the wizarding stations," Hermione says, shifting the dial slowly. "Then you can have some music in here."

"Music," Black says, seeming utterly mystified at the concept, and then he looks to Harry. Harry takes out all the food, first - twelve eggs, a load of bread, a packet of bacon, some sausages... George had really gone out of his way to fill an entire compartment of the enchanted rucksack with all the food he could pilfer, and it would be obvious to Harry just looking at the pile of food that he's a child of Molly Weasley. "Food?"

"Yeah, just take whatever to cook, Mr Black-"

"Please," Black interrupts him, desperately, "Not Black." Harry stops short for a second, staring up at the convict in front of him, and he seems so upset all of a sudden, but-

"It's okay, Sirius," Hermione says from her place on the edge of the bed, looking cautiously at him. "We can call you that, if it's better."

"Always Black," he says in his small, hoarse voice, "Twelve years, always Black."

"Sorry, Sirius," Harry says, the name falling awkwardly off his tongue. Black looks so small where he stands, shrunken in on himself, and Harry wonders what he was like before he went to Azkaban - was he always so nervous, so quiet? "Uh, look, if you wanna take some food-"

"I'll do it," Hermione says, abandoning the radio and coming over. She turns on the hob, putting a pan on and grabbing a packet of bacon and some of the eggs. As she works, she begins to put the food away, into the cupboards and onto the side. "Write down oil, would you, Harry? I've only got butter here."

"Oh, yeah," Harry says, writing it down on a piece of parchment as he unpacks the last of the stuff in the bag, a few tomatoes and apples, a cucumber, some bananas. Black stands mutely between him and Hermione, glancing between the both of them. "We've got you some clothes," he says. "Uh, a set of robes - they're Hogwarts robes, but they should fit you for now, and then two pairs of trousers, two jumpers... Sorry there's not more." He begins to unpack the clothes of Percy's Fred and George had managed to get hold of.

Black looks utterly overwhelmed, and Harry says quietly, "Maybe you should sit down." He does, dropping down onto the edge of the bed, and Harry puts the clothes on the top of the dresser. With that, Harry unpacks the last of the stuff he had gotten hold of - a few of his Muggle paperbacks, some wizarding fiction, and then shampoo, soap, a sponge, two toothbrushes, a comb. And then he draws out from the bottom of the bag his photo album, setting it aside. Hermione brings the plate over to Sirius, setting it down in his lap, and then helps Harry put the toiletries away and set the books on the shelf.

It barely takes them five minutes, and in that time Black has utterly emptied his plate, leaving it clean in his lap.

"Can you cook, Sirius?" Hermione asks quietly, and Black hesitates.

"Can. But- Not since-" Black breathes in, letting out a shuddering sigh, and then he says, "Cooked last for Harry. Harry and James." Harry stares at him, and he feels tears burning at the edges of his eyes that he tries to rapidly wipe away. Hermione looks at him, obviously not knowing what to say, and so she turns back to Black.

"That's okay," Hermione says softly. "That's okay. Harry's a really good cook."

"We brought you some stuff," Harry says. "Brought you some books, too, and there's soap in the bathroom now." Black takes his plate over to the kitchen, putting it slowly into the sink, and Harry collects his unused knife and fork from the bed, dropping that into the sink too. Black sits beside Harry on the floor beside the coffee table, and Harry pushes the photo album and the map onto the table.

"We need to ask you, Sirius," Hermione says quietly, sitting across from them. "What exactly happened." Black looks away, staring into the middle distance, and Harry gives a little shake of his head to her. "But we've got some stuff for you first."

Sirius looks at the contents of the table, and then he smiles, reaching for the Marauder's Map and holding it up. "You found this? Filch took it." Harry and Hermione share a look over the table, and then they nod their heads. Black smiles, setting it aside, and then he reaches, slowly, for the photo album. "This?"

"It's mine," Harry murmurs. "People sent me photos of my family. And them some of me, my friends. Thought you'd like to look through it." Slowly, Black gives a nod of his head, and opens the album to its first page.


	45. Year Three: It All Comes Out

Sirius spends ages pouring over the photographs in Harry's album. He points the people Harry hadn't known the names of, and even though all he can tell Harry is their names, it's something, and it means a lot to him. Sirius' smile lingers on his face the way the ghosts linger in the Hogwarts corridors sometimes - it's like he's forgotten he's even smiling, like he's forgotten he even exists for a few minutes as he browses through the photographs.

The ones he'd been sent are mostly of his mum and dad, but a few of them have Lupin in too, and he smiles at the picture of him.

"He's teaching here now," Hermione says quietly, "Lupin."

"He wanted to teach," Sirius replies simply, paging forwards, and then he grins. "Ah. You." It's a Muggle picture Jon Granger had taken of Harry and Hermione eating ice cream a few years ago, and Sirius smiles at it. The rest of the photos are of them, now - the photo Harry had clipped out of the Prophet last year, photos of Harry with the twins, of Hermione mid-argument with Padma Patil, and a photo of Harry talking to Snape. He'd liked that photo when Creevey had shown it to them - in the picture, Snape looks like he's almost in a good mood, arching an eyebrow as Harry says something vaguely insulting about Gilderoy Lockhart.

Sirius frowns at it. "Snape," he mutters. He taps the photograph as the picture Harry grins up at Snape, twisting his mouth in apparent disgust. Snape is about the same age as him, though, so Harry supposes they probably knew each other at Hogwarts.

"My head of house," Harry says, and Sirius lets out a noise that can only be described as a growl, flicking through the other photos. "You don't like him?"

"Snivellus," is the only response Harry gets, and he elects not to press any further. "None of the rat."

"I don't know any rats, Sirius," Harry says. "Sorry."

"No, no, no," Black says impatiently, and he pushes the album aside, his hand hovering over the map. Hermione reaches forwards, tapping it and activating it, and he gives her a grateful little smile as he folds the Marauder's Map out on the table. Harry wants to ask him questions, wants to ask who made the map, if Sirius knew the makers, what really happened when Harry's parents were killed... But he can't. Not yet. "He'll be here. The rat. He's at Hogwarts."

"Sirius," Harry says quietly, "Do you mean Pettigrew?"

"Yes. The rat, snivelling little- there." Black jabs at the little dot in the Gryffindor common room. "Pettigrew."

"But there's no one there, Sirius," Hermione says, and he groans, shaking his head.

"No, no. He's hiding. Look. Look." He goes silent for a few moments, eyes moving wildly as he tries to think, and then he says, "I'm dog. James was a stag. Him, him! The rat!"

"He's an Animagus?" Harry repeats.

"Yes! That's it. Animagus." Sirius makes a loud spitting sound, shaking his head firmly. "Should have known. Was always a rat, showed he was a rat. Need to get him, kill him." The words alarm Harry a little bit, so he pulls out the pack of cards he'd shoved into his pocket that morning, and he sets them on the table.

"Why don't we play a game, Sirius?" He furrows his brow, peering down at Harry, but then he nods his assent, and Harry deals them out. They're the funny cards he'd bought a while ago - a Muggle set with ridiculous wizards and witches as kings and queens, and occasionally Sirius will let out a bark of a laugh at an image he likes. Harry and Hermione stay with him for hours and hours, and when they finally leave, Sirius hugs them both like he's known them for a decade.

* * *

"Hi, Professor Lupin," Harry says lightly the next evening. The Marauder's Map has been returned to Fred and George, Sirius is settled in bed with The BFG to entertain him and the radio on in the background, and Harry just can't keep the smile from his face.

"Harry," Lupin says, offering Harry a small smile, and he taps a small trunk he has laid on its side beside his desk. "I've got another Boggart here. Thought it'd be better than bringing a real dementor in." Harry nods his head, and Lupin examines him for a moment, asking, "Having a good day?"

"A pretty great day, actually," Harry agrees. "So, what is the Patronus Charm?"

"Well," Lupin starts. "It's deceptively simple."

* * *

It becomes a routine for Harry. Every day, in the morning or in the evening, he'll creep out to the Willow to see Sirius, under the Invisibility Cloak to ensure he isn't seen. Sometimes, Hermione will go with him. Other times, it will be Fred or George. Most of the time, Harry heads down alone. Cooking for Sirius isn't hard, and by October he cooks himself, so that Harry doesn't have to worry that he'll only eat bread and apples all day: by mid-October, Sirius looks almost healthy, and he seems mentally healthier too.

It's obvious to Harry that there's still a lot wrong, but Sirius can hold a real conversation, and Harry's finally able to actually talk to him. Harry tells him about his day, and Sirius actually responds; more excitingly, Sirius talks right back. He tells Harry how he liked this book or that article in the Prophet, or what he heard on the radio yesterday, and it's- It's strange. Talking to Sirius feels like talking to an imaginary uncle, one that doesn't despise him, and when Harry voices the thought he laughs.

"Well, I'm your godfather, Harry," he says one early afternoon, and the thought rings through Harry's entire being. It seems completely right, somehow.

"Really?"

"Really," Sirius confirms, giving a nod of his head, and he shifts his position in the chair he'd conjured a few days ago before he says, "I'm not surprised no one told you. I wouldn't have."

"Will you tell me what happened?" Harry asks quietly. "That night?" Sirius slowly inhales, gripping at the arm of the chair he's sprawled in before he releases it: he wears some of Percy's old trousers and a yellow jumper, a collared shirt underneath. Harry's first Hogsmeade trip is next week, and Harry has plans to buy him some more things to wear. This is the first time Harry's actually questioned Sirius on the subject, but Sirius doesn't react that badly - he fidgets a little, but he doesn't explode. Harry feels like he might have, a month ago.

"Firstly, you have to understand, Harry. At school, me, James, Peter and Remus - we were the best of friends. There were crucial things we bonded over... Have I told you it was us that made the Marauder's Map?"

"You hadn't mentioned that, actually," Harry says wryly, and Sirius laughs.

"Well, we did. We bonded so closely, and upon leaving Hogwarts, James and I became Aurors, but... There was a prophecy. A prophecy that talked about you, and Voldemort: that's why he pursued you, tried to kill you when you were a child. There was someone else-" Sirius focuses for a second, pressing his lips together, but then he shakes his head. "I don't remember. But it could have been another boy, and it wasn't: he chose you. We hid James and Lily under a Fidelius Charm. Have you heard of it?"

Harry shakes his head. "It hides knowledge from outsiders, and only the Secret Keeper can reveal that knowledge. Lily and James were hidden in Godric's Hollow, but even if you were looking into Lily's eyes, you couldn't have known she lived there without the Secret Keeper telling you. We thought-" Sirius' face becomes a mask of pain and grief for a second, and then he says, "We thought Remus was feeding information to Voldemort. We thought he was betraying us, and I believed that were I to be made Secret Keeper, they'd come after me first. I thought I was too obvious, so we chose Peter."

"And it was him. It had been him all along - I ran to the home in Godric's Hollow, saw James' body on the floor, saw Lily in front of your crib- And Merlin, Harry, how you cried. There was blood all over your face, and I picked you up, held you, tried to stop you crying... But you were alive. I brought you outside to my bike, and Hagrid - you know him, Hagrid? - he said he needed to take you. Well, I let him - I gave you straight over, because I needed to go after Pettigrew. Hell, I told him to take my bike, even. And I went after him."

"People celebrated that night," Harry murmurs. "Were you the only one...?"

"No one else knew. I tracked him to this Muggle street, and he blew up the whole street, cut off one of his fingers and dropped into the sewers."

"As a rat."

"As a rat." Sirius shakes his head slowly, and says, "I was crazed, hadn't slept in days- I couldn't do anything but laugh. All I could do was laugh."

"I'm sorry," Harry murmurs, and Sirius meets his gaze. His eyes look so old, Harry thinks, so much older than they should. "And escaping?"

"I saw him, Peter. In the paper. This family, they'd won money, gone to Egypt. This boy, this one boy- he had him in his hands for the photo." Sirius lets out a low, sharp noise of frustration, shaking his head. "I've not gone into the castle yet - but I could, Harry, I could-" Harry interrupts him.

"Family...? What, you mean the Weasleys?" Sirius shrugs. "Sirius, Fred and George - they're Weasleys. They just got back from Egypt this summer, and their brother, Ron, he has-" Harry goes abruptly silent. He feels stupid for having waited so long to ask Sirius about this, because all that time, Pettigrew has been in the Gryffindor common room. "He calls him Scabbers. I've got to go."

"What?"

"I'll have you pardoned by tomorrow night," Harry promises, running out of the tent. "I promise, Sirius!"

* * *

Harry couldn't possibly luckier than he is in this moment. As he enters the great hall, lunch is just beginning to finish up, and he can see Ron Weasley at the Gryffindor table, trying to get Scabbers to eat, but Scabbers just keeps trying to struggle free: Harry runs up to Snape at the table. He's heard Sirius talk a little about Snape, about how much he hates the man, and how it was always mutual...

"Sir," Harry says urgently, "What should I do if I believe there's an unregistered Animagus in the castle?" Snape stares at him, taking a slow, measured sip from his drinking glass. Harry can see Flitwick and Sprout craning to listen, obviously curious, but they don't interrupt.

"You ought report it, Potter, to a member of staff."

"And what would you do?" Snape sets his jaw.

"Potter, barring Professor McGonagall, there are no Animagi in the castle."

"I bet you ten Galleons that there is one, sir." Sprout does her best to hide a snort of laughter, and Snape shoots her a glare that only serves to make her laugh more. "I think he's helping Sirius Black." Something flashes in Snape's eyes, and Harry knows he's used the right strategy: even without Sprout and Flitwick there, Snape would be willing to listen.

"Do you, indeed?"

"Isn't there some way to tell?" Snape sighs, doing his best to look put-upon, but Harry can see the slight tension in his jaw and his neck.

"Oh, humour the boy, Severus," Flitwick says, offering his coworker a gleaming grin, and Snape "reluctantly" moves to stand, scowling down at Harry.

"Where is this Animagus, Potter?"

"Right over here, sir, at the Gryffindor table."


	46. Year Three: Fudge's Decree

Harry sits down in the trophy room, staring at the unconscious form of Peter Pettigrew as they wait for the Aurors to arrive. Snape is furious with him, but Harry truly doesn't care at this moment in time, and he just stares at Pettigrew. Lupin comes slowly towards him, and he sets a hand on Harry's shoulder, gently: he's become more friendly in the past few weeks, over the course of Harry's unsuccessful Patronus lessons, and Harry an tell he's upset.

People keep asking him questions about how he knew, but all Harry can think about is the horrified, choked scream Ron Weasley had made as Pettigrew had tried to scramble away on the floor, and the cry Pettigrew had let out when Snape had stunned him.

"They're here," McGonagall says, and Harry looks up at the two Aurors who enter the room, followed by a man in an ugly bowler hat. Minister Fudge himself.

"Now, now," Fudge says, nervously glancing from Pettigrew to Harry. "What have we here?"

"Minister Fudge," Harry says cleanly, before any of the teachers can speak, "Do you know what arm Death Eaters carry their Dark Mark on?" Fludge flusters, shifting on his feet, and the two Aurors either side of him roll their eyes. Harry recognizes the younger one as Nymphadora Tonks, Andromeda's daughter, but the other, a tall, black man, is unfamiliar to him.

"The left, I believe, Mr Potter."

"Right," Harry says, and he makes his way forwards, towards Pettigrew's form on the floor. He grabs at the sleeve of the man's shabby robes and pulls up so hard that the fabric rips: faded and barely distinguishable is a dark tattoo. Harry stares down at it, stares down at Pettigrew in utter disgust, and then he slowly meets Fudge's gaze. "Is it or is it not the case, Minister Fudge, that Sirius Black was sent to Azkaban without trial?" He speaks very quietly, deliberately. Lupin shudders, staring at Harry with something like horror in his eyes.

"I- Well, Mr Potter," Fudge says, gesturing for Tonks and the other Auror to make their way forwards, towards Pettigrew. He hears the Auror casting spells, presumably to stop Pettigrew from transforming, and then they haul him up, tying him soundly with an Incarcerous. "That was Minister Bagnold-"

"I don't actually care, Minister Fudge," Harry says coldly. "Blaming it on another politician won't help my opinion of you." Fudge stares at him, horrified, and Harry wonders stupidly for a moment if he has the influence to get rid of him. He doesn't - he's not stupid, he just sends a few letters now and then, and he's only a kid. But one day, maybe, he'll have the right political capital to drop Fudge out of the Ministry and onto his fat behind.

"Mr Potter," Dumbledore says quietly, but when he tries to put his hand on Harry's shoulder Harry shrugs it abruptly off, shooting Dumbledore a nasty look before turning to the Aurors.

"Thanks for coming quickly," he says, honestly, ignoring Fudge. "What happens now?"

"We question him," the one Auror says in a slow, measured voice. "We take any and all statements. He'll then be sentenced." Harry stares at Pettigrew's Stunned form, and then he looks away, not saying anything more. The Auror, whose name is apparently Kingsley Shacklebolt, takes Pettigrew back with Fudge to the Ministry, and it's Tonks that stays to take their statements.

"How did you know Mr Pettigrew was an Animagus?"

"I'd seen Ron Weasley hold Scabbers - he was very old, for a rat, and apparently he just turned up in their garden twelve or so years ago. That wasn't that suspicious, but then I noticed that he was missing one of his fingers, and when I saw Professor McGonagall transform one day in class, it made a suspicion click in my head. Thus why I went immediately to my head of house, Professor Snape. I trusted him to take me seriously and, of course, deal with the situation with any necessary severity."

* * *

"You're an idiot and a liar, Potter," Snape says sharply as they walk down to the Slytherin common room. He looks ready to kill a man, but Harry refuses to be intimidated. "How did you know he was an Animagus?"

"Didn't you hear me when I explained to Auror Tonks, Professor?" Snape whirls on him, and Harry stares up at him defiantly as Snape glowers down at him. "Sorry for being manipulative, sir."

"Detention with me for three weeks." Snape growls, and Harry thinks he expects Harry to flinch, but Harry doesn't.

"Yes, sir," Harry says quietly. They start to walk again, and Harry asks, "Do you think he'll get the Kiss? Pettigrew?" Snape glances at him, perplexity mixing in with his anger and his irritation, and Harry says, "He deserves it. He betrayed my dad, my mum. He had as much hand in their deaths as Voldemort did." For a fair while, Snape doesn't reply: they walk through the corridors and down into the dungeons, Harry's boots making quiet noise on the stone floors, and Snape's making none at all.

Finally, they come to the split in the hall where right leads to the common room and left to the Potions classroom, and Snape says, with an air of finality, "He'll get the Kiss, Potter." Harry's never heard Snape try and be even the slightest bit comforting to anyone, but he's grateful for it.

"Thank you, sir," Harry murmurs, and Snape turns on his heel towards the dungeons.

* * *

 **SIRIUS BLACK PARDONED**

Harry doesn't look back as soon as he gets his copy of the Prophet that morning - he runs so fast down to the Whomping Willow he skids once he gets into the passageway, and he grins as he rushes up the steps into the Shrieking Shack to find-

Sirius is gone.

Harry calls his name, but he doesn't appear to be in the Shrieking Shack at all, and nor is he inside the tent - he hadn't even left a note.

Harry moves slowly back towards the castle, running his hand through his hair and clutching his copy of the Prophet mutely in his hands as he joins the group of students assembled in the entrance hall. McGonagall holds a list of students in her hands, and she scans the students before her.

"Hey," Hermione murmurs, passing Harry his bag, and he takes it, dropping it over his shoulder. "What's wrong?"

"Sirius isn't in the Shack," Harry answers quietly, shoving his paper into his bag, and Hermione turns her head to stare at him, concern obvious on her face.

"Where is he?" Harry shrugs, setting his jaw, and they move down the path with the other students towards the Hogwarts gate. Despite Harry's worry about Sirius, he embraces exploring town with Hermione, and he has a decent enough time searching through Honeydukes. Harry picks out a box of sugar quills extra, and when they enter the Three Broomsticks for a butterbeer, he sees Ron sat alone at a table, waiting for Seamus and Dean.

Harry heads over, and he pulls the box out of his bag, holding it out for Ron to take. Ron stares at it, uncomprehending, and then he meets Harry's gaze. "What do you want, Potter?"

"I wanted to apologize," Harry says, "For how I pointed Pettigrew out. I was gonna try and get Snape to just come get him from your common room, but I couldn't let him stay there. He could have done anything." Ron is paler than usual, his freckles standing out obviously on his skin, and Harry can see the bags under his eyes from lack of sleep. "You okay?" He looks for a moment like he's ready to tell Harry to just piss off, but he doesn't.

"Could be better, to be honest," he admits, and he takes the box of sugar quills. "Cheers."

"No problem," Harry says, and he gives Ron a small smile before he heads back to Hermione, taking his mug from her. They settle together for a little while, drinking together, but despite the strange and novel taste of the butterbeer, which bubbles on his tongue, Harry is distracted. Where had Sirius gone? Is he alright?

Harry frowns as he steps slowly out of the Three Broomsticks, waiting for Harry to catch him up.

"Oi!" comes a loud, sharp call. "Potter!" Harry looks up, and then he sees him. Sirius is dressed in tight, black jeans that come high on his waist, their fabric ripped and distressed in places, coupled with a bright pink, floral shirt, and over top of all of this is a red leather jacket. Harry starts to laugh, and Sirius grins at him, offering him finger guns that go well with his utter mess of a dated outfit.

"What are you wearing?" Harry demands, running forwards.

"Had to look sexy for Rosmerta, didn't I?" Sirius answers, "I've waited twelve years to flirt with that woman again!" Harry grins, throwing himself forwards, and Sirius hugs him tightly, pressing a kiss to the top of his head. There are people staring at them, Harry knows, but he ignores every single one of them, gesturing for Sirius to come back towards the Three Broomsticks with him. "Hallo, Hermione."

"God, what are you wearing?" Hermione asks, staring at Sirius in horror, and he seems to take this as a compliment.

"This was the height of fashion when I went to prison."

"It really wasn't," Hermione disagrees, and Harry lets Sirius pull him against his side and ruffle his hair. "Where've you been?"

"I headed to the Ministry as soon as the pardon came through at about four this morning," Sirius explains, patting Harry's shoulder before letting him go. "Went to the bank, got out some cash, went back to my old flat, got out some clothes... Oh, and best of all!" Sirius pulls his wand out of his pocket, and he reaches forwards, conjuring a flower that settles brightly behind Hermione's ear.

Harry laughs, liking the way Hermione smiles at the sudden burst of colour. "What are you going to do now?" Harry asks quietly.

"Do you know, Harry," Sirius says, "I have absolutely no idea." He breathes in the cool hair, putting his hands on his hips. "It's quite liberating."

"Sirius!" comes a call from behind them, and Harry turns to see Remus Lupin standing in the middle of the street, staring at Sirius with his lips parted, his eyes wide. "Merlin's beard, you're not wearing that."

"As I was explaining, Moony, to my dear godson and his friend," Sirius says, tossing his hair in a dramatic fashion, "I have to look attractive for Rosmerta." Remus laughs, and when he laughs this time he looks so much younger, so much healthier, as he looks at Sirius, and they step together, embracing tightly. Remus whispers something into Sirius' ear, but Sirius just murmurs something back, patting the side of Remus' cheek, and they draw apart.

"We're going to head back up to the castle, Sirius," Harry answers, and Sirius gives him a thumbs up, letting him and Hermione walk away. Harry glances back as Sirius and Remus go into the Three Broomsticks, their arms around each other's shoulders, and he wonders what Sirius must feel like, being free, all of a sudden. It's all happened so fast - all of a sudden, Sirius is free, and Harry has a godfather, a real godfather...

It's amazing, he thinks. Utterly amazing.

"Potter!" calls Ron Weasley urgently from up the hill, staring down at Harry with horror painted on his freckled features. "Look out!" Harry glances around, perplexed, and then he sees it: coming right towards him at fifty miles an hour are two rogue bludgers, and Harry throws himself to the side to avoid their path. They whistle through the air, but Harry can tell by the way they turn back that they're focused on him.

"Hermione! Get out of the way!" Harry runs off the path and onto the side of the hill, away from the village, and the bludgers both swing around in the air, focused on him. He curses as one of them flings itself an inch from his head, and he yells, "Arresto momentum!" One of the bludgers abruptly slows itself down, but the other one clips Harry hard in the shoulder, and he feels the sharp shift as the blade is pulled out of place. He cries out, trying to keep his other wand hand steady, and this time he tries an explosion charm, but he misses the bludger twice as it swings one way and then the other in the air.

Harry scrambles back, but he twists his ankle on an outcrop of stone with a quiet crack and drops hard down the side of the hill, rolling on his injured shoulder and sending agony screaming through his back and his right leg. He hears someone else yell out a Reducto, and then running towards him comes, of all possible saviours, Percy Weasley. "Potter? Are you alright?"

"Not really," Harry retorts, pressing his face into the cool, dewy wetness of the grass beneath him. "Think I dislocated my shoulder." Percy kneels down beside him, grasping him carefully at his hips and lifting Harry bridal style off the grass, shifting him so that his weight is against Percy's chest and there's no pressure on his injured shoulder. "You're quite strong." Harry hears the words come out of his mouth, but he doesn't recall giving his tongue permission to say them, and Percy lets out a short, wry laugh.

"A point to Slytherin for stating the obvious," Percy says, and Harry laughs, keeping his injured arm on his belly. The twinge he'd felt the summer before last comes back to him, and he breathes in, trying to ignore the way Percy Weasley smells (like parchment and pine needles and ink): closing his eyes, Harry lets Percy carry him into the village. "Why is it always you, Potter?"

"You tell me, Perfect Percy," Harry mutters, "You tell me."


	47. Year Three: The Rat Kissed

Harry shifts in bed, pressing his lips together. The crack in his ankle had been a clean break, so he just needs to wait an hour or so for the bones to knit themselves back together; Madam Pomfrey had easily pushed his shoulder back into place, and while it had certainly hurt, Harry had been grateful the bludger hadn't hit him somewhere worse, like his spine or the back of his head.

"Awake, Potter?" comes a voice, and Harry glances towards it.

"Wide awake, sir," Harry replies as Snape glides into the hospital wing. "Madam Pomfrey says I'll be healed up by dinner." Snape gives an incline of his head, and he holds out a newspaper to him as he hovers beside Harry's bed. Frowning, Harry reaches out, taking it, and then he stares at the image that takes up the majority of the page: Pettigrew shakes as he kneels in the photo, cowering as best he can, and then a dementor blocks all view of his face as it leans over him. Pettigrew drops forwards onto the ground as the dementor draws away, eyes open but unseeing, and Harry watches the photo repeat its animation half a dozen times before he glances up to Snape.

"Special evening edition," Snape says dryly, "Just for that." His tone is disparaging as he spits out the words, and Harry gives a slow nod of his head, holding the paper in his hands. It's a disgusting, disturbing sight, the way Pettigrew tumbles forwards again and again, but it fills Harry with a dreadful satisfaction.

"Will Voldemort know?" he asks, and Snape stares down at him, his brow furrowing.

"What do you mean, Potter?" Snape doesn't flinch at the use of Voldemort's name, Harry realizes - most of the teachers twitch slightly, at the very least, but Snape doesn't seem to twitch at anything at all. Does nothing scare the man? Other than being nice, presumably.

"The Dark Mark on his arm... Voldemort's inner circle had them, right, so he could summon them? Pettigrew's not dead, but he's- well, he's empty now. He's gone. Will Voldemort feel that?"

"An interesting query," Snape murmurs, arching an eyebrow as he stares down at Harry, and not for the first time Harry has the same, bizarre inclination that Snape might be able to read minds. The way he stares into Harry's eyes is positively unnerving, and for a few seconds Harry doesn't know what to say, but it's Snape that breaks the quiet, "I don't know, Potter. But Pettigrew's body will expire soon, without his soul to animate it."

"Thanks, Professor," Harry says, "For bringing my paper. You glad?" The question slips from his tongue without his thinking about it, but Snape doesn't necessarily seem angry.

"That Pettigrew received the Kiss?" Snape presses his lips together, letting them thin, but Harry can see that he's thinking about his answer, formulating it. He's just a bizarre and hateful man, but Harry can't help but be curious. "Why should I be glad?"

"He was a mass murderer, a Death Eater," Harry shrugs his shoulders, folding a corner of the Prophet over itself to create a little piece of concertina in the parchment. "Seemed a bit of a bastard, really." Snape lets out a sort of huffing sound that might be a laugh - Snape looks truly awful when he laughs, though, so Harry's almost glad it's not a fully-fledged laugh. Lupin and Sirius' laughs make them seem younger, but Snape's always just makes him look even worse than he usually does.

"What are you doing here?" Sirius is sneering as he swaggers into the Hospital Wing, a package under his arm, and he seems to hope that Snape will flinch back away from him, but he doesn't. Sirius steps right into Snape's space, until they're nose to nose, and says, "Long time no see, Snivellus." Harry had known the both of them disliked each other, but he hadn't really thought about it like this.

"As clever as always, Black," Snape says icily. "One would think with all that time alone with your thoughts you might have had time to formulate a better insult." Harry stares between the two of them, utterly taken aback.

"Shut up, Sirius," Harry says loudly before his godfather can reply, and he stares at Harry, apparently surprised by Harry's interruption. "Cheers, Professor. See you at dinner."

"Assuming you survive that long, Mr Potter. Do try not to be assassinated," Snape replies, and he leaves the room with the same smooth, silent motion he always seems to employ.

"Yes, sir," Harry agrees, and he looks to Sirius. He'd disappeared for a few hours after Harry had been brought up to the infirmary, claiming he had an appointment, but it's obvious he had no issue coming into the castle.

"What was that?" Sirius demands, dropping himself onto the edge of Harry's mattress, and Harry shakes his head.

"I was just about to ask you the same question, Sirius," Harry says, shifting his leg a little to the side so that Sirius has more space. "You can't talk to him like that."

"Why not?" Sirius' tone is almost petulant, and Harry can't honestly believe he's having this conversation.

"Because I'm the thirteen-year-old and you're the thirty-year-old, to begin with," Harry says, and he watches the annoyance and the honest irritation on Sirius' face - Harry had never seen the man sneer before, and it hadn't been a good look. He's glad to see Sirius look well-rested and better than he had done, but he doesn't want to deal with the man bickering with his professors. "He's my head of house, Sirius, you don't have to talk to him like that."

"He's disgusting," Sirius says firmly, crossing his arms over his chest and sprawling back against the footboard of Harry's bed. "Don't trust him, Harry: he was always into all sorts of dark magic at school, constantly tried to get James, me and Remus into trouble."

"I promise not to trust him so long as you calm down when you talk to him," Harry says, and Sirius lets out a loudly dramatic sigh, but then he spreads his hands in an innocent gesture, relenting. Today, Sirius is wearing actual robes in bright, dappled blue: his clothes are as flamboyant as Lockhart's had been, but certainly less... Well. They look less foppish. Instead of big, fluid stretches of fabric designed to accentuate any swirls and turns, Sirius' clothes are closely tailored to his body, tight at the waist and the arms and only going loose at their skirt. "Did Dumbledore say anything to you about the bludgers?"

"Nothing," Sirius answers, "No idea where they came from. They're not from the Hogwarts supplies, but they were enchanted to focus on you, Harry, just like that knight down in the dungeons was." Harry gives a nod of his head, fidgeting uncomfortably. His leg is beginning to tingle and tickle, and he can't quite ignore the feeling. "Any idea who it is?"

"Well, no one's told me they want me dead recently," Harry says, and Sirius looks at him with his eyes focused on Harry's face. Sirius' eyes are a deep blue, and he's let a little stubble grow over his face. "You think it's Voldemort?"

"No," Sirius says firmly, shaking his head, "No, this isn't his style. This is clumsy."

"Glad to know my would-be assassin is an amateur," Harry mutters, and Sirius laughs. His laugh doesn't sound harsh and painful anymore, and Sirius' voice no longer sounds painful to use. His voice isn't especially low, but it's rich and resonant, and he talks well, now that he's had a little more time to recover.

"That's the spirit!" Sirius catches the green-wrapped package he'd brought in with him, sliding it across the mattress: it's a relatively small, square box tied off with a white ribbon, and Harry examines it for a second, feeling its minimal weight. At a nod from Sirius, he undoes the ribbon, setting it aside and pulling the wrapping aside to reveal the box inside: on a little presentation pillow, shining in the evening light, are two keys on a ring. Harry pulls them out, staring at them, and Sirius says, "One for the Black family home at Grimmauld Place, and another for my flat in London. The Ministry never found it, so they just gave me the keys back."

"You have a flat? A Muggle flat?" Harry asks skeptically, and Sirius grins at him.

"I've maybe upgraded some of the Muggle things a bit. It's dusty, of course, and I need to have a bit of a clean-out, but it's all mine. Well. Yours too, of course. I've already asked Dumbledore, but it's all up to you."

"Asked Dumbledore what?" Harry asks, because Sirius has a sort of secret smile on his face as he shifts back and forth on the side of Harry's bed. Harry stares at the keys in his hands, and wonders what the Hell his godfather is- "Oh," Harry says softly. Sirius is offering for Harry to come and live with him. Sirius is offering to take care of him, let Harry stay with him instead of going back to the Dursleys every summer.

"You don't have to," Sirius says urgently, looking uncertain as to what Harry's "oh" had meant. "Obviously, I mean, it's just an offer-" Harry throws himself forwards, wrapping his arms tightly around Sirius' neck, and Sirius laughs as he pats Harry's back. Harry's leg is twinging for the position, but he does his best to ignore it for a few moments.

"Yes," Harry says, "Yes, God, thank you, thank you, Sirius-"

* * *

Harry has a grin on his face as he makes his way into the great hall, and he settles down in between Draco and Blaise, throwing his arms around both of their shoulders. "Hello," Blaise says pleasantly, leaning into Harry as Draco lets out a garbled protest, but Harry refuses to let the other Slytherin go. Draco groans, glaring at the hand on his shoulder as if it's some sort of disgusting spider. "You're in a good mood."

"I, gentleman, will no longer live with the most boring, irritating and downright awful family in all of Little Whinging," Harry proclaims. "All post ought be forwarded to my new address in Central London, with my dear, ex-convict, not-a-Death-Eater godfather, Sirius Black." Across the table, Theo laughs, and Draco shoves Harry's hand off of his shoulder, elbowing him in the side.

"You're such an idiot, Potter," he says, but Harry's good cheer is obviously infectious, because he smiles too, and Harry leans in, delivering a loud, dramatic kiss to Blaise's cheek. Zabini laughs, pulling himself out from Harry's arm, and he shakes his head.

"Glad to hear your living situation's improving, Potter. Was it really that simple?"

"He had to sign a fair bit of paperwork, but yeah. The Ministry's bending over backwards to do what he wants at the moment." Blaise nods his head, seeming to approve: Harry is already drafting letters in his head, thinking of what he'll ask everyone in his address book about Sirius, and he wants to know everything. Now that Sirius is officially innocent, maybe he'll be able to get a bit more information about him.

"I wonder why," Theodore says wryly, pouring a glass of pumpkin juice for Harry as he shakes his head. "No real trial, didn't realize a man had gotten away, and wrongfully imprisoned in Azkaban for twelve years." Theo lets out a low whistle, giving a small shake of his head, and Harry picks up his glass, taking a small sip. "How did he escape, anyway?"

"He was," Harry says in a low voice, "An unregistered Animagus. Now, of course, he's registered, and he's done more than enough time in Azkaban to make up for his previous crime. He slid out of the bars in dog form, swam out. Apparently they're going to change the jail a bit, add some more enchantments so that people can no longer utilize similar magic."

"Most of the time people aren't sound enough to try escaping," Blaise says, drumming his fingers on the table. "But all security's good security."

"You don't think Azkaban's a bit extreme? I don't see why they need the dementors there. Surely imprisonment would be enough."

"What else are we supposed to do with them?" Draco asks, putting his nose in the air. "Sorry, Potter, would you rather the dementors were hanging around your front garden?"

"What Draco is trying to say," Theo says, kicking the other boy under the table, "Is that we had an agreement with the dementors long ago. We send them our prisoners, and they stay around Azkaban. They're sentient, but they're satisfied with that much." Harry thinks of the dementor that had crowded him against a wall in Hogsmeade that September, at the look of its clammy, rotting hands... They're back in Azkaban now, all of them, but it's not enough, not for Harry.

"We should destroy them all," Harry murmurs. "Wipe them out.

"Send your method to the head of the Aurors," Blaise suggests. "I'm sure they'd love to hear it. It's not like you can kill them."

"Not even with a strong Patronus?" Draco shakes his head.

"They act as shields, standing between you and the dementor: because they're held up by happy thoughts, they're of the right substance to shove a dementor out of the way, but they can no more kill one than a dagger could." Harry frowns, turning the problem over in his head, and Draco says, "Let's change the subject to something a little more cheery. Hogsmeade."

"You mean where he just got attacked by two rogue bludgers?" Blaise asks.

"Without mentioning Potter," Draco amends, and Harry snorts, reaching for some potatoes as food appears on the table.


	48. Year Three: Unicorn Hooves

"Expecto Patronum!" Harry grits his teeth as he casts, narrowing his eyes behind the glass of his specs as he concentrates on the charm. A light, blue-silver mist springs forth from his wand tip, forcing the Boggart back slightly, and he lets out a sharp, irritated noise as he flicks his wand aside, giving up.

"Harry-"

"Expecto Patronum!" Harry repeats, and more mist springs from his wand, a little thicker this time and forming a heavy shield between him and the Boggart, forcing it back by a foot, but it's not enough - it's not corporeal, not yet, and Harry wants it to be. He's determined to get this spell right, if he has to practice every day between now and the day he dies. "Expecto-" Lupin's hand touches Harry's hand, stopping him short, and he gives a flick of his own wand, forcing the Boggart back into its wardrobe.

"Professor, I can do it," Harry argues, and Lupin gives a rueful little laugh, reaching for the bar of chocolate on his desk and offering Harry a few pieces, which he reluctantly takes. Lupin sits back against the desk, crossing his arms over his chest and looking down at Harry with a fond smile. "I can."

"I have no doubts, Harry," he assures him quietly, watching Harry for a few minutes. "It's just a matter of finding the right memory. What are you concentrating on when you cast?" Harry thinks about it. He focuses on the feel of his wand in his hand, the shift of his arm and his hand as he moves it, the slight hiss of magic in the air as the Patronus comes forwards.

"Er," Harry says, glancing away for a moment, and Lupin laughs. It's a kindly laugh, and Harry sighs as he drops back against a desk. "It just feels- I don't know, stupid."

"A Patronus is a concentration of happy thoughts, of happy memories," Lupin explains, meeting Harry's gaze and looking at him seriously. Harry never feels like Lupin is talking down to him or patronizing him - he's not like some people when explaining a concept, and Harry's glad of that. "You're effectively creating an avatar the dementor is forced to concentrate on instead of yourself - by externalizing some of that happiness, you create a shield that the dementor can't quite attack. This isn't like a Cheering Charm or a Summoning Spell, Harry. It's more intuitive than that. You need a truly happy memory to anchor your Patronus to." Harry scans his mind, trying to pull at happy thoughts - seeing the presents beneath his Christmas tree in first year, seeing Hermione the next summer... Seeing the contract Sirius had laid out on a table for him to read, the one transferring Harry's care from Vernon and Petunia Dursley to Sirius Black.

"Once more," Harry says determinedly.

"You're very focused on something, once you want it, aren't you?" Lupin asks, and Harry gives a simple nod of his head; Lupin steps back and away from the desk, flicking the latch on the wardrobe open, and Harry stares at the "dementor" as it slowly pushes the wardrobe open, gliding out. Harry breathes in, and he focuses on everything he felt when he saw Sirius spread out the piece of parchment on the table, the relief, the excitement, the pure contentedness at the idea of living with anyone, anyone, other than the Dursleys, but especially with Sirius.

"Expecto Patronum!" A blue-mist shape glides through the air from Harry's wand: it's vague and only lasts a few seconds but Harry can see that it has four legs and a large body. He grins, and Lupin slides the wardrobe door shut behind the Boggart.

"Well done," he says quietly, honestly. "We'll have a corporeal Patronus out of you in no time, Harry."

* * *

"You don't seem too happy," Blaise says as he enters Harry and Draco's dorm room, dropping Draco's Nimbus 2001 onto his bed. He'd borrowed it to play a game with some of the fourth years out on the pitch, and now that he's inside Blaise is windswept and slightly muddy. Harry sighs, running his hand through his hair and setting a letter aside.

"I've just been getting a lot of the same letters," he admits. "Just a lot of nonsense, really. "Oh, I always knew he was innocent!" That kind of thing." He shakes his head, shoving his parchments and papers to the side of the bed so that Blaise can sit down. "Only Augusta Longbottom has referenced it honestly."

"What did the old bag say?" Blaise asks, and Harry pulls the parchment out from the pile, clearing his throat to read from it.

 _"Honestly thought Black would be in prison for years, but if he's innocent, he's innocent. Typical of the Ministry to fumble the Quaffle. Tell him hello. He won't care that I said so, arrogant little bastard that he always was, but it's polite."_ Blaise laughs, and Harry grins, setting Mrs Longbottom's letter back on the pile. Harry leans back, putting his feet in Blaise's lap, and asks, "You looking forward to the holidays?"

"Yeah, Mother and I are going to New York for the holiday," Blaise says casually as he leans back against the post of Harry's bed. "What about you? First Christmas with Black, eh?"

"That's right," Harry says, with a little grin on his face. "We're gonna meet up with Hermione and her parents on Boxing Day, and I've made plans to see the twins, too."

"Don't tell me those are the only people you're socializing with over the holiday?" Blaise asks, pinching his face in an obvious display of disgust, and Harry arches an eyebrow.

"Don't be snooty, Blaise, or I'll hex you out of the room."

"What I mean," Blaise amends, doing his best to make his expression a little more neutral, "Is that you should see more people. Proper people."

"Blaise."

"It's politics! You write everyone letters, but you should go to Christmas balls and the like. Especially with a Black as your guardian - there are expectations of a young man," Blaise says, and Harry rolls his eyes.

"That's why you and your Mum are going to New York, is it?" Blaise huffs, shooting him a scowl and shoving Harry's feet from his lap before he leaves the room. Harry sighs, but despite Blaise's general prejudices, Harry supposes he can't ignore everything the other boy had said. He reaches for his letter from Lucius Malfoy, scanning the page. It's politics, isn't it? Just politics.

* * *

"I'm not going to go," Hermione says sharply as she and Harry walk down towards the pen Professor Gudgeon had set up beside the Forbidden Forest.

"Hermione, come on, there'll be all sorts of important wizards and witches in attendance-"

"All of them bigots!" Hermione snaps, and Harry sighs, trudging along beside her. "I'm not going to go to a party hosted by Lucius Malfoy, Harry - he'd be happy if I were dead. Honestly, how could you think I'd want to come?"

"You could prove him wrong," Harry offers. "Look at Draco - you and him almost get on, sometimes."

"When he's utterly silent," Hermione says, "Though as soon as he opens his mouth I remember his true colours. It's like asking me to go to a dinner hosted by a Neo-Nazi, Harry."

"No, it's not!" Harry protests loudly. "It's not the same thing-"

"It's exactly the same thing." Hermione stops short, and Harry has to skid slightly on the wet grass to keep from going past her: she points her finger into his face as she meets his gaze, and he finds himself wishing her were, at the very least, the same height as her. She's had a growth spurt recently, and he's been rather left behind. "You can go, and you can drag Sirius along, but you're not going to get me to come. It's different for you, Harry - as soon as I walked into that Christmas gala in my dress robes, every eye would be on me, because they wouldn't recognize my name, and they'd know what I am. I'm not going to have dinner with people who'd like me and my parents dead." She stalks off, and Harry sighs, watching after her with a resigned expression on his face. It's not as if he can make her come with him.

The invitation for the gala had been printed in neat, green ink on fancy parchment, on Christmas Eve at Malfoy Manor. It had allowed for a plus one, as well as Sirius, but Harry supposes his plus one isn't going to be Hermione, and he's hardly going to invite just one of the twins, even if either of them would come.

"You're late, Mr Potter!" tinkles Professor Gudgeon as he rushes down the rest of the hill, and he gives her a shrug.

"Sorry, Ma'am," he says insincerely, and she gives a little, disapproving moue. Professor Gudgeon is wearing a set of robes today made of pink, satiny material, covered over with black polka dots and tied at the waist with a black sash: the skirt of the robes comes out from her body like a 50s party dress, and Harry can't help but think the ensemble is a little over the top for an afternoon of classes in the mud.

"Now, children," Gudgeon says, putting her chin high as she gestures to the pen behind her. "This afternoon we will be acquainting ourselves with the most noble of magical equines: the unicorn." Gudgeon's smile is momentarily fixed on her face, her made-up lips not moving and her eyes strangely frozen as she stares at Harry, and Harry shifts uncomfortably under her gaze, glancing at the others for help. None comes. "Why don't you introduce yourself first, Mr Potter?"

"Don't unicorns like girls, Professor?" Harry asks.

"Well, they prefer virgins as well, but they're just fine with me!" Gudgeon lets out her feminine little titter: nobody else laughs. "These unicorns are rather young, so they are not as cautious of men as older ones." Harry stares over the fence at the bright, white bodies of the six unicorns assembled, each of their horns seeming razor sharp in the afternoon sun.

"Right," Harry says awkwardly, and he moves to the fence, slowly climbing over and into the pen. He takes a slow step forwards: the unicorns assembled turn to look at him, and Harry doesn't like the looks in their eyes, nor the way their golden hooves shift in the grass. "It's okay," he says in what he hopes is an appropriately soothing tone, taking slow steps forwards. One of the unicorns turns its head abruptly towards him, lowering its forehead slightly so that its horn is roughly in line with Harry's head. "Or it's not," Harry corrects himself. Already halfway across the paddock, he begins to walk rapidly to the side, towards the edge of the fence, but four of the unicorns are already walking slowly towards him, lowering their heads and shielding the other two, which he thinks are the males, from Harry.

Harry turns and just runs to the edge of the paddock, throwing himself over the fence as the unicorns give chase, skidding to a stop at the edge of the fence.

"Right!" Harry says to them, breathing a little heavily. "Glad to see we don't get on." One of the unicorns tosses its head and lets out a whinny, glaring at Harry as if he's just tried to kill one of them.

"Potter! What are you doing!?" Professor Gudgeon calls from the other side of the fenced-in area, and Harry stares at her.

"Uh, not letting a unicorn make me into a kebab!" Harry snaps back. "What does it look like I'm doing?" He can see Draco trying not to laugh, hiding his mouth behind his hand, but Hermione is shifting anxiously from one foot to the other, looking at Harry with obvious concern on her features.

"Come here!" Harry sighs, beginning to walk around the edge of the paddock, but there's a loud splintering of wood from beside him, and he stares at the fencing as it just crumbles into wood shavings, leaving a two metre gap in the fence. The four female unicorns, who'd been returning to the males, turn and look at Harry.

"Hermione!" Harry yells, not breaking the stare he keeps up with the biggest female unicorn. "How fast can a unicorn run!?"

"Faster than you, Potter!" shouts back Theo before Hermione can reply, "Start running and weave!" Harry doesn't need telling twice. He shoots back into the Forbidden Forest, throwing himself over tree roots and through little ditches, doing his best to weave one way and then the next to make it more difficult to run after him in a straight line. Throwing himself forwards and into a piece of trunk, he crawls forwards and inside, ducking down to try and keep himself hidden.

He hears the pound of hooves on the ground around him, and he waits for a few minutes before he slowly pulls himself out of the trunk he'd hidden in: as he stands, the wood behind him comes apart with an odd ripping sound, and he turns to stare at it.

With a sick, discomforting feeling, he realizes he isn't looking at a piece of wooden trunk, but a thick, yellowing snake skin, at least six feet across.

Swearing under his breath, Harry begins to run back to the edge of the forest, and he heaves in breaths as he goes back to Professor Gudgeon and the rest of the students, who are staring at Harry in obvious horror. "I need to go up to the castle," he says firmly.

"Class is still in session, Mr Potter," Gudgeon says sharply.

"Well, class nearly just killed me, so I'm going up to the castle," Harry retorts, and he ignores the woman as she yells "Ten points from Slytherin!" after him.

* * *

"Professor Snape, sir," Harry says as he pushes open the door to the Potions classroom, and his head of house gives him a withering stare from behind Luna Lovegood's cauldron. Luna gives him a little smile and a wave, which Harry awkwardly returns. "Uh, it's not exactly an emergency, but it could become an emergency, sort of, maybe."

"What are you blabbering about, Potter?" Harry gives Snape an urgent look, glances at his students, and tries to silently convey that he doesn't want to impart this information in front of Snape's second year Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws. Sighing, Snape says, "Into my office, Potter. I'll deal with you in a moment." Harry nods, pulling the Potions door shut.

Just before the latch clicks, he hears Luna say, "He'd be rather dashing if he wore the right sort of chain mail, don't you think, Professor?"

* * *

"Does she always talk to you like that?" Harry asks as Snape enters his office a few minutes later, and Snape stares at him. "Luna, I mean?"

"Mr Potter," Snape says in a low, threatening tone, "If this query is why you have interrupted my lesson, very bad things will happen to you."

"No," Harry hurries to say, "No, um, some unicorns nearly killed me just now-"

"What?"

"And when I ran into the forest to get away from them, I found a snake skin. A, uh, a really big snake skin." Snape is silent for a few moments.

"The Basilisk has shed its skin?" Snape asks slowly: Harry gives a nod of his head.

"Which means it's still alive," Harry says, and Snape pinches the bridge of his nose, setting his other hand on the back of his chair. "Should I tell Dumbledore?" Snape pauses for a few long moments, and then gives a nod of his head.

"Go. The current password is Aniseed Balls." Nodding his head, Harry rushes out, and hopes that Dumbledore is in his office. God knows this isn't the time for the headmaster to go wandering.


	49. Year Three: Skin For Christmas

"It was just this way," Harry says, walking over a thick tree root spanning a ditch with Snape, Dumbledore and McGonagall in pursuit. He jumps over a little dip full of nettles, and then he points to the "trunk" he'd seen earlier. He now sees the slightly torn piece of shed skin that had once covered the Basilisk's eyes, deep, brown-red blood clinging to the shed skin around the eye holes. "Ugh," he mutters.

Dumbledore and McGonagall stand back, and Snape moves forwards, tearing a piece of skin from the yellow husk. The Majority of it is hidden in the undergrowth, and Harry can see it between Snape's fingers: it's not parchment-thin and a little transparent, like pictures of shed snake skin he'd seen before, but a dirty brown colour as thick as a piece of honeycomb.

"How old is it, Severus?" Dumbledore asks, and Snape gives a shrug of his shoulders.

"I'm hardly an expert, Headmaster, but I would estimate the skin has been here a few months. Certainly the Basilisk has lived for a few months in the Forest, at least. With the width and breadth of the Forest, however, one could hardly expect to pinpoint its exact location."

"You said you could kill a Basilisk with cockerels," Harry says, looking at Dumbledore. "Can't you just send some into the Forest?"

"They'd not survive long, Potter," McGonagall says, staring at the huge skin with a terse expression on her face, her lips pursed. "There are a number of predators here."

"The spiders," Snape offers, looking to Dumbledore, and the old man gives a quiet hum, rubbing his knuckles over his beard. Harry glances between the two of them, trying to figure out what the spiders are, but Dumbledore just shakes his head.

"They don't take kindly to intruders, Severus. We could hardly make our way into their den."

"I didn't mean us," Snape retorts, crossing his arms over his chest. "I meant-"

"I took your meaning, Severus," Dumbledore interrupts in his most kindly tone, and Harry can see the way Snape's lips thin as he glares at the older man, see the way his knuckles whiten as he tightens his grip on his own sleeves. "But nor can Hagrid go alone. In the meantime, we might exercise patience."

"Patience?" Harry repeats. "Sir, it's a fifty-foot long, poisonous snake."

"Venomous," Snape corrects. Harry stares at him.

"I have no doubt it will remain within the boundaries of the Forest, Mr Potter," Dumbledore says. "Perhaps we ought decide what is to be done with the skin."

"I found it," Harry says quickly. "Doesn't that make it mine?" Dumbledore peers down at him, his blue eyes twinkling.

"And what are you going to do with it, Mr Potter?" It had been automatic for him to ask, in all honesty - he's learned to grasp at all available opportunities, but the Basilisk's skin isn't something he really wants to cart back to his dormitory, and nor does hs really think he can use it.

"Donate it," Harry says slowly, "To the Hogwarts Potions department?"

"How very generous of you, Potter," Snape says dryly as McGonagall hides a very small chuckle against her wrist. Harry feels his cheeks redden, and he feels like more than a bit of an idiot, standing before the three teachers.

"Can I go back to the castle now?"

"Come, Potter," McGonagall says, giving him a very small smile.

"He was going to give it to Snape anyway, wasn't he?" Harry asks.

"Indeed," McGonagall agrees, and Harry sighs. Either way, Snape is getting skin for Christmas, even if Harry is a bit embarrassed.

* * *

"So they're just going to let this serpent wander around the Forest?" Draco asks, and Harry gives a nod of his head.

"Yeah. Yeah, that's pretty much what I was told."

"This school is going to the dogs," Draco says, opening his Charms textbook with a huffy sound, and Harry just shakes his head.

"Are you alright, Harry?" Hermione asks, rushing forwards and settling at the table with them. It's coming up to five o'clock, now, and Harry knows Hermione's just come from an Arithmancy session with Vector. "Those unicorns-"

"They didn't hurt me," Harry assures her, and then goes onto explain the skin he'd found in the Forest, and how he'd brought Dumbledore and the rest to examine it. Hermione is silent, putting her hand on her chin as she considers the idea, and she frowns deeply. "So, you know. Don't go wandering by the lake at night, or a snake will eat you."

"Oh, don't say that." Draco snickers.

"Scared of the snake, Granger?"

"At least I don't cry at the thought of werewolves, Draco," Hermione shoots back archly, and Draco's expression abruptly sobers, and he goes quiet. For once, Harry wishes Draco could keep his mouth shut around her, but apparently that's beyond him. "Now then, who's going to be your plus one, Harry?"

"I thought you were?" Draco asks, looking at Hermione with a momentary intensity, and Hermione gives a minute shake of her head.

"No," she says firmly. "I'm not." Draco opens his mouth, looking like he's going to ask why, but Harry doesn't need to deal with that.

"I don't know," Harry admits. "I don't even know for certain if I'm coming, yet."

"You can't not come," Draco protests, as if Harry missing a party is the most offensive idea he's ever come across. "Everyone will be there. Just- Well. Don't bring a Weasley."

"Given your dad's sad little feud with the Weasleys, Draco, I wasn't planning on it."

"What do you mean, sad?" Harry doesn't have the patience for this right now, and so he turns around, glancing around the Great Hall.

"Hey! Luna!" Luna Lovegood turns from her place at the Ravenclaw table, regarding Harry with her strange, blue eyes.

"Yes?"

"You want to come to a gala with me Christmas Eve?" Luna blinks, staring at him. "You know, a party?"

"Oh," Luna says, tilting her head slightly, and then she says, "Yes, alright. Do write me the details, Harry."

"Will do," Harry agrees, and he turns back to Draco and Hermione. Draco is staring at him, his icy eyes wide, and Hermione looks equally taken aback. "What? She's nice."

"Harry," Hermione says delicately, "Don't- Well, isn't she a bit mad, Luna? I've heard people call her Loony Lovegood." Harry's heard the same name repeated now and then, but it's certainly not a nickname he approves of. He doesn't see why everyone's so opposed to Luna's company - she's a bit strange, certainly, but she's always nice to him when she sees him, and Harry sees no sense in being unpleasant to her.

"She's utterly batty," Draco says in a much harsher tone, "I can't believe you've just invited her to my house."

"Who did you want me to bring, Draco? Cho Chang?"

"Yes!" Draco snaps. "That would have been quite nice!"

* * *

"I'm not going," Sirius says as a form of greeting. Harry stares at him, holding Hedwig's cage carefully in his hands as Sirius picks up his trunk.

"Why not?" Harry asks. He'd wished Sirius had said outright that he wouldn't come in the past few weeks, and Sirius lets out a little groan of noise.

"Because Lucius Malfoy is the scum of the earth," Sirius says. "And I don't want to spend an evening eating fancy food and making small talk with the worst of society."

"Alright," Harry says. "Me and Luna will just Floo over without you." Sirius stiffens, glancing at him.

"Without me?" he repeats. Harry looks at Sirius innocently.

"Well, we've already RSVPed. I can't not go. But you don't have to come, obviously, if you don't want to."

"I'm coming," Sirius says firmly, and Harry feels the mildest bit of guilt for having pushed him into direction he'd wanted, but he would have gone on his own, had Sirius refused. The Malfoys' views are outdated and ridiculous, but it's not as if they're going to be the only people present at the gala, and the Malfoys are... Well. Harry likes them. It's difficult to completely hate them when he's met them in person and when Lucius is normally so pleasant and warm when he writes his letters. "How was the ride home?"

"It was alright," Harry says. "Hermione and I played a game of chess."

"Are you any good?" Sirius asks. They'd played once or twice when Sirius had been hidden in the Shrieking Shack, but the other man had never been in completely the right state to concentrate on them.

"Not really," Harry says, "But nor is she, so we were pretty evenly matched."

"Remus is terrible at chess," Sirius says affectionately. "James wasn't too great, either. Normally I had to play with one of the girls." Harry glances at him, listening carefully, and Sirius continues, "Lily was alright at chess. She didn't find much fun in it though."

"What sort of thing did she like?"

"Oh, Charms. She went to Charms club religiously, pursued all these little projects of her own, charming everything in sight. Especially your dad, obviously." Harry laughs, and Sirius continues, "She played a few things with the girls, I think, but she wasn't big on games. More of a talker." Harry nods his head, and Sirius stops short in front of a red-painted door with a 16B. Harry can see a set of steps leading down to a flat below Sirius', and a second door that presumably leads up to the flat on the next floor. "This is us."

"Really? This isn't even five minutes' walk from the station."

"Yeah," Sirius agrees. "Diagon Alley's nice and close, as well. Open the door then, Harry. Give your old godfather's arms a break so he can put his trunk down." Harry reaches for the door handle, which turns easily under his hand, and he pushes it open.

The door opens into a hallway, and Sirius drops Harry's trunk beside the door, kicking it closed behind them. Already, the magic in the building is obvious: the hallway is long and winding, much longer than should be physically possible in a poky little London flat, and Harry grins.

"Go on then," Sirius says, grinning at him. "Explore." Harry needs no more prompt than that.

16B Argyle Street has two bedrooms, a kitchen, a living room, a library, two bathrooms and, illogically, an attic. Despite 16C's flat being above them, a ladder in the library leads up into the humble little loft, in which is a large piece of white fabric stretched on the ground. Tools are scattered around the room, in tool boxes, and Harry can see the black shine of oil stains all over.

Sirius' bedroom is ridiculously plush, decorated in garish reds and golds with pillows on every other surface; the library and living room are much the same. The colour scheme is almost blinding, actually, and if Harry had had doubts at to his godfather's Hogwarts house, they'd be gone by now. The library is modest, with a dining table accompanied by plush dining chairs in its centre, but there are all sorts of interesting books on the shelves, a mix of wizarding and Muggle.

The living room has a wonderful fireplace that's carved a stag on its one side and a large dog on the other: the mantel looks as if it had once had a pattern carved into it too, but it's been smoothed away. It's a comfortable lounge, though, and Harry likes the framed photographs of his parents, Remus and Sirius around the room. There's even one photo of Sirius with his arm around the shoulders of a dark-eyed, attractive woman Harry recognizes as a young Andromeda Tonks. He doesn't mention the two or three gaps in the walls where photos have obviously been torn down.

The most exciting room of them all, though, is Harry's own bedroom. It's currently undecorated, with simple wood boards flooring it, and plain white paint covering the walls. There are no sheets on the double bed, and there's currently no furniture at all in the room bar the bed itself and Harry's trunk, but it's his. It's Harry's own bedroom, and it's not in some magical tent - it's in Harry's new home, with his godfather.

"I thought we'd buy some furniture and some paint tomorrow," Sirius says, appearing in the doorway and leaning against the frame, crossing his arms over his chest. He's the very image of casual: he's just wearing a set of flared jeans and a shirt emblazoned with made-up men captioned with KISS despite the cold outside. "You can set up your tent in the living room for now." Harry laughs a little.

"Camp out in the living room?"

"Why not? Put a record on, play some cards... Just like old times." Harry smiles at his godfather, and then he gives a nod of his head.

"Just like old times," he agrees quietly. "Sounds good."


	50. Year Three: It's The Fashion

"Stop looking at the prices," Sirius says firmly, and Harry lets out a little groan as he glances back at his godfather. Sirius and Remus stand together, letting Harry pick out his own furniture in the odd little shop: Harry had said he'd prefer to get secondhand pieces than new ones, and Sirius had been glad to comply, but... Well. Harry doesn't know that he sees the sense in getting a wardrobe worth more than a Nimbus 2000.

"Sirius, I-"

"Look, Harry, whatever takes your fancy, we'll get," Sirius interrupts him, looking at Harry as sternly as he can manage. "Think of it as picking out new heirlooms." Harry glances at the wardrobe, tracing the runes carved neatly into its wood and shifting uncertainly on his feet.

"Are you sure?" Remus steps forwards, leaning and reading the card beside the wardrobe. It's a beautiful old thing, carved of mahogany, and it's enchanted with extra space so that one can fill it with as much clothing as one needs. "It's-"

"Harry," Remus says quietly, putting his hand on Harry's shoulder. "This price is very reasonable for a cabinet of this quality, even secondhand. Besides, this furniture is well made and will last you years upon years - when you live alone, you'll likely bring it with you. It's an investment." Harry bites his lip, glancing at Sirius again.

"I'd like this wardrobe," he says. "Please."

"Finally!" Sirius declares, and Remus tuts at him.

"Calm down. He hasn't picked out any other furniture yet, nor sheets, nor paint." Sirius' euphoria drains away, and Harry feels a little bit bad for being so picky and uncertain, but over the past few years he's done his best not to spend his money stupidly or rashly. Sirius has no such qualms - he'd already offered to buy Harry his own motorbike, which Remus had scolded him for.

In the end, Harry settles on the wardrobe, a dresser, an escritoire, some bookshelves and a bedside table, all made of roughly similar mahogany wood: the desk is to be settled in front of his window, which overlooks Argyle Street, and the rest will settle easily around the walls. Barring his apparent distaste for the "boring" colour of Harry's furniture, Sirius is quite happy to buy it all - Harry's colour scheme brooks less approval.

"Silver and green," Sirius repeats, both of his hands on his face as he stares down at his godson. "Silver and green? You want silver and green? What, do you want me to buy you a dado rail carved with snakes?"

"What the bloody Hell is a dado rail?" Harry asks.

"It's a wooden separation between one part of the wall and the other," Remus answers. "Rather like a paper border, but in three dimensions."

"Oh," Harry says. "Then yes, actually, that sounds quite nice." Sirius lets out a loud and dramatic groan. "Don't give me that! Your room is so red and gold you could sell it to a Chinese emperor!"

"That's different! I'm a Gryffindor!"

"Well, I'm a Slytherin, and they're nice colours!" Sirius looks at Remus for help, but the other man just shakes his head, refusing to join the dispute. In the end, Sirius lets Harry pick his colours, and Harry chooses a dark ivy wallpaper to put on the lower part of his room's wall, with silver paint to go on the upper part. Sirius arranges for all of the new things to be delivered, and they make their way down to Madame Malkin's.

"Dress robes," Sirius says in disgust, shaking his head as he reluctantly follows Harry inside, and Remus laughs. "Why don't you come, Moony? Why must you force me to go alone, with only my godson and his girlfriend to protect me?"

"She's not my girlfriend, Sirius," Harry says. "I barely know her."

"All the better!"

"I can't come," Remus says simply, and Harry glances back at him as he and Sirius share a look. "Don't worry. I'll be fine on my own." Harry frowns, wanting to ask what exactly they're talking about, but then Madam Malkin's assistant points him over to a rail of dress robes, and Harry begins to sort through.

* * *

"Oh, look at you!" Sirius says, putting on an accent uncomfortably similar to Lucius Malfoy's, "Oh so refined, Mr Potter!"

"Shut up," Harry says, and he looks at himself in the mirror. The dress robes are nice, he thinks, in a deep, simple blue, and they don't have any of the lacings or ribbons or excessive silver clasps a lot of the other sets do. "These will be fine, right?"

"No doubt all the girls will swoon at your arrival," Sirius promises, and Harry rolls his eyes. "But not as much as they swoon at mine."

"Didn't you say were going to wear those orange and purple robes that look like they've been copied from curtains?"

"I don't believe that's how I described them, dear godson," Sirius says, ignoring Remus' laughter. "But yes, indeed." Harry chuckles, shaking his head, and he goes to take the robes off and change into his normal ones. He has no idea how the gala is going to go, but he has the sneaking suspicion he won't be able to go the whole evening without one disaster or another.

Especially with Sirius in tow.

* * *

"You got me a dado rail," Harry says as he enters the room, and Sirius bows with a flourish, grinning at him. All of his furniture and decorations are now in place, with Harry's trunk at the foot of his bed, his record player on his dresser, his letter organizer on his desk: Sirius has even hung Harry's poster of Lixie Pott on the wall over his new nightstand, and she seems ridiculously out of place amongst the sombre decoration in her little white dress.

The dado rail is made of the same mahogany as the furniture, and Sirius has had little leaves and flowers carved into it to match the ivy wallpaper: it's nice, and Harry lets Sirius pull him into a hug.

"Nothing I would have picked out, obviously," Sirius says.

"I wouldn't be able to sleep in a room that you picked out," Harry says. "I'd be afraid a lion was going to jump off the upholstery." Sirius scoffs, but he presses a kiss to the top of Harry's head: he doesn't do that all that often, despite being obviously tended towards physical affection, and it's... It's not something Harry's ever experienced before, before Sirius came to advertise his newfound freedom in Diagon Alley, and not something he ever expected to experience. The Malfoys or Mrs Weasley will hug him like Sirius does, but it's not the same, not quite.

"Speaking of upholstery," Sirius says, and he slides forwards, across the room. Reaching out, he grabs at thin air, pulling back Harry's Invisibility Cloak, and Harry laughs. The armchair is black and made of some sort of corduroy fabric, and Sirius has settled it across from the shelves to make a little reading nook. "Surprise!"

"Is that my Christmas present?" Harry asks, and Sirius gasps, looking horrified.

"No. Merlin, no, Harry. I spent much more on your Christmas present."

"Sirius!" Sirius starts to laugh, and Harry realizes that he's just joking. "You're too casual about money."

"So you keep telling me," Sirius says, dropping himself into the new armchair with his legs dangling haphazardly over the arm. "But if you think I'm too casual about money, you're in for a shock this week."

"At the gala, you mean?" Harry asks, sitting on his trunk to face his godfather, and Sirius nods his head, looking serious for once.

"Gala is the big clue, as a name," he says. "Let alone that it's hosted at Malfoy Manor."

"Is it actually a mansion?" Harry asks, and Sirius considers the question for a few moments, searching his mind. Harry can tell he doesn't immediately remember, can't recall automatically, and he opens his mouth to change the subject, but Sirius waves his concern away.

"It's a fairly big house. A dozen bedrooms, big kitchen downstairs, that sort of thing - a lot of it's built out of stone, and it's belonged to the Malfoys for centuries, maybe even a millennium. Don't completely remember. Most of the effort's put into the gardens, of course. There used to be a huge maze pruned of all different bushes, then the fields, several greenhouses, and Lucius' pigeon coop."

"They're doves," Harry says with a mild amount of reproach, and Sirius shrugs his shoulders.

"He's a strange one. Bloody bird fancier. Well, bats too, I suppose - he virtually adopted Snape when he came into Hogwarts." Harry frowns at Sirius, leaning forwards. Sirius notices his renewed interest, and adds, "He was in his final year when Snape came in, I think, but he really took to him. Made it bloody hard to get at Snape, to begin with."

"What do you mean, get at him?" Harry asks, frowning, and Sirius chuckles.

"We took immediate dislike to each other, me and James against Snape. We'd hex each other, get at each other, any chance we got - he was bloody vicious, too, but if we tried to get back at him, Uncle Lucius would normally step in. Gave me the worst cuff upside the head, once, nearly knocked me down." Sirius gives a little, wistful sigh, as if that's the sort of day he longs for, and then he looks to Harry. "Let's get something to eat. No point talking about the Malfoys. We'll be seeing them soon."

"You'll be polite, won't you?" Harry asks quietly. "I know you don't want to come, but for my sake-"

"I'll exercise myself with all decorum," Sirius promises. "Within reason."

* * *

"Cissy!" Sirius yells loudly as the cross the threshold of Malfoy Manor, throwing his arms around his cousin's neck and delivering a loud, sloppy kiss to her cheek. "So good to see you, dear cousin," he says, and Harry can see Narcissa stiffen slightly before she brings a smile to her face, engaging in the same faux affection as Sirius is, albeit with less passion.

"Sirius," she says warmly, patting his cheek. "So good to see you free at last." Lucius looks ready to break his champagne flute between his fingers, and Harry mouths a Sorry at Draco as he steps forwards. "Merry Christmas, Harry."

"Thank you, Mrs Malfoy," Harry says. "Ma'am, Mr Malfoy, this is my friend Luna." They'd picked Luna up from Ottery St Catchpole and taken the Knight Bus up to Malfoy Manor, and Harry had hovered at the gates, staring in with utter wonder. The snow-dusted pathway up to the house had been lit with real fairy lights, floating three metres in the air and illuminating the gravel: in the distance, Malfoy Manor had looked like some French palace with its snowy roofs and wide windows shining with light from inside. Harry is no less enamoured with the place from the inside.

"Luna," Lucius says, holding out his hand and shaking hers: Harry notices the broadness of his hand in the dainty one of Luna Lovegood, despite the fact that they both have skin the colour of porcelain. "Luna...?"

"Lovegood, Mr Malfoy," Luna says sweetly; Malfoy's eyes widen a fraction, but he keeps the polite smile firmly on his face. "My father says you're quite the man." He coughs delicately, giving a nod of his head, and he lets Narcissa shake her hand instead.

"Do speak with us later in the evening, Harry," Narcissa says affectionately, but she catches Draco's shoulder before he can follow Luna and Harry into the main hall. "We've still guests to greet, Draco." The youngest Malfoy presses his lips together, obviously annoyed, but he just gives Harry a small wave and stands between his mother and father once again.

The main hall has a high, square ceiling with dark brown beams spanning across its surface: from these beams hang gold-lit lanterns, and around the edges of the room are white-clothed tables holding all manner of different finger foods. The décor is more of the same white and gold decoration, and it's tasteful, pleasant. It's much warmer than he'd have expected for a party hosted by the Malfoys, but by no means is the surprise a bad one. He glances at Luna, who's peering around the room with interest.

"Quite the man, huh?"

"He's not actually a man at all," Luna confides in him quietly. "The Malfoys come from a long line of male Veela."

"Can you get male Veela?" Harry asks.

"Oh, yes," Luna says in an authoritative tone. Sirius, standing behind her, shakes his head no, and Harry smiles, giving a nod of his head. "Excuse me, Harry," Luna says, and she walks off into the mix of people towards the bathrooms: she's wearing the most bizarre set of blue robes decorated with red mushrooms, but despite the oddity of them they're rather beautiful, and they fit her perfectly.

"Go on, then," Sirius says, giving a little wave of his hand. "Off you go."

"You don't mind?" Harry asks.

"I'll go chat with Cissy," Sirius says resignedly. "Go on, my snake-ish little socialite. Go be the little terror I'm raising you to be." Harry snorts, and he steps back from Sirius and into the crowd.

* * *

Harry's head is awash with information as he looks around the room, doing his best to recall names and recognize faces and crests and styles: he sees reporters from the Daily Prophet and Witch Weekly and Quidditch In Colour, high-end politicians and Minister Fudge himself, top healers, herbologists, potioneers, inventors, writers, chefs. In the past few years, Harry has truly come to be fascinated by all the big names of the wizarding world, and now?

Everyone is at the Malfoy Christmas Gala. Well, that's not strictly true. There are no Weasleys, obviously, and-

Harry stops short, staring across the room: he's standing beside a man Harry recognizes as Bartemius Crouch, the Head of Magical Law Enforcement. They're in deep conversation, but Harry can see the freckles on his cheeks under his flush, see his carrot-red hair curling around his ears, sees the way his dress robes hang from his skinny, beanpole body. Percy Weasley at the Malfoy Christmas Gala, like a cat among the pigeons - or a gnome among the doves, really.

"Hey," Harry says, joining the conversation, and Percy glances down at him, keeping his chin in the air. He's doing the whole pompous thing, and Harry wishes it didn't make him shiver. "Alright?"

"Mr Crouch," Percy says, reaching out and putting his hand on Harry's shoulder. "This is a schoolmate of mine. Harry Potter."

"Ah, Mr Potter!" Crouch doesn't really smile, but he puts out his hand, and Harry shakes his hand. "A pleasure to meet you in the flesh."

"You too, Mr Crouch," Harry says warmly, "I saw you in the paper the other day, with Mr Moody." Crouch's lip twitches, and he lets out a noise that's almost a chuckle without really letting his lips quirk.

"Alastor was reluctant to pose," Crouch says, giving a nod of his head. Percy, beside them, looks utterly flabbergasted by the fact that Harry's talking to Crouch like this, and Harry decides to take mercy on him and bring him into the conversation.

"Are you guys talking Ministry business?"

"I was telling Mr Weasley my assistant is retiring this summer: he and his wife are going to have children, and he wants to raise them," Crouch says with a quiet tut of sound, as if spending so much time on raising children is a bit of a waste. Percy holds his breath, forgetting how to speak for a moment.

"Oh, make sure you take down Percy's details then, sir," Harry says firmly. "He's head boy at the moment, and he's a stickler for organisation. You won't find a better assistant elsewhere." Crouch blinks, peering down at Harry for a second, and then he glances at Percy.

"I, er. I'm- well, as he says, I'm head boy, and I shouldn't say I'm a stickler, but I am rather organized, focused, even, and I'm quite capable of-" He coughs. "That is, I know my way around a filing system and I can keep books in order and-"

"It's alright, Percy," Harry breaks in. "You can send him your CV. Right, Mr Crouch?"

"Right," Mr Crouch says. "Indeed." He walks away, leaving Percy and Harry stood together, and Harry looks up at the older boy, raising his eyebrows.

"Does your dad know where you are?" Harry asks, and Percy scowls at him.

"Does my mother know where you are?"

"I won't tell if you won't," Harry says, and Percy's lip gives a little twitch. He pats Harry on the back, and he slips into the crowd. Harry wonders who he came with, given that he knows Malfoy wouldn't have invited him on his own, but then he drops the thought for the time being. He can ask later, after all, and there are more people to talk to.

"I should doubt it, Ms Lovegood," he hears behind him, and he turns, approaching Luna when she appears in sight. She's methodically eating a small cob of corn, one piece at a time, and in mid-conversation with, of all people, Snape. His dress-robes look exactly the same as his Hogwarts robes at first glance, but even looking closer Harry can see they're made of a slightly sleeker fabric than usual, and that's all. "Though you might always experiment."

"I wish there were more potions texts based in experimentation in the library," Luna says softly. "I have a great love of certain effects. Hello, Harry. Professor Snape and I are discussing bubbles." Snape arches an eyebrow at Harry, but he doesn't offer any actual greeting, so Harry doesn't either.

"Bubbles?" Harry repeats. "In potions?"

"Out of potions," Luna corrects him. "The sort that rise up and out of the potion, you know? They look so beautiful in the light, but then they pop... My current formula is unfortunately rather acidic. It leaves terrible burns." Harry laughs despite himself, and he gives Luna a little grin. She must be extremely clever, he knows, to be able to actually put together her own potion to do something, but... It seems an odd effect to work towards.

"You can't just use the Muggle ones?"

"Bubbles formed of soap and water lack the long-lasting effect, and there's no latent magic in them to affect them to traverse a room," Snape says dryly, "They merely sink with gravity." Harry glances at Snape, who seems completely serious, and Harry wonders if he's stepped into some alternate reality. He doesn't even look the slightest bit annoyed at the conversation, and when Luna rushes off to greet a pop star Harry's never heard of, Harry peers up at his head of house. "Can I help you, Potter?"

"Do you like champagne, sir?"

"No," Snape says, and takes a sip from the golden, bubbling liquid in his glass. Very few people in the room are wearing black, and subsequently Snape, despite his average height and his obvious disinterest in idle chat, stands out amongst the crowd. Harry leaves him be, though, and speaking to a white-haired woman with bright, amber eyes, he sees Gladys Gudgeon.

"Harry!" she says loudly, and Harry gives her a polite, awkward smile. "Come. Jacqueline, this is Harry Potter."

"Oh, is it?" Jacqueline says, her amber eyes settling on Harry's face, and Harry glances between the two of them, furrowing his brow. "Pleasure to meet you."

"You too, Mrs...?"

"It's Miss," she corrects, "Flockhart."

"Flockhart," Harry repeats. "Right. Well, nice to meet you, Merry Christmas, I'll just be right back-" He reaches for a glass on a table, taking one of the ones marked for those under the age of seventeen, and he takes a sip, scanning the room. He sees the ridiculous flower pattern easily enough, and he makes his way towards Sirius.

Sirius and Lucius are both talking to a rather old, corpulent gentleman in dress-robes that are somehow even more dated than Sirius': despite their ugly paisley pattern, Harry can see the fabric is well-cut and expensive, even if it's made to stretch a little. "Ah, here he is," Sirius says, looking relieved as he sees Harry. "My godson, Prof- Er- Horace. Harry Potter, this is Horace Slughorn."

Harry opens his mouth to reply, but he stops short for a few moments, feeling his throat suddenly dry. He coughs quietly, reaching up to massage his neck, but when he breathes in next he feels the intake of air scratch over his closing throat, and he tries to cough to clear it, but he can't. He chokes out a strangled noise, dropping the glass to the ground beside him, and he stumbles a little leaning on Sirius.

"Severus!" Lucius yells sharply across the room, and Harry grabs desperately at his godfather's robes as he tries to breathe. Lucius disappears from view for a second, and then he returns, putting his hand on Harry's jaw.

"Get off, Malfoy-"

"Hush, Black," Lucius bites out, and he presses something odd and bitter tasting against Harry's lips; he tries to lean away from it, but Lucius pushes it into his mouth, holding his jaw shut tightly as Harry tries to struggle away, but Harry can feel his throat beginning to slacken, and he heaves in a gasp of relief, nearly choking on the stone on his tongue.

He spits it out onto his palm, and he stares down at it as the burning in his throat begins to slowly recede.

"It's a bezoar," he says hoarsely.

"Yes, Potter," Snape says, murmuring a diagnostic spell and looking at him seriously. "A point from Slytherin for stating the obvious."


	51. Year Three: And Poison

"You can't do that!" Harry argues hoarsely as Lucius ushers him into a side room and onto a low sofa. "We're not in school!"

"My apologies, Potter," Snape says dryly. "I hadn't realized you were enrolling elsewhere." Sirius looks furious, and he shoves Snape away from Harry: Lucius responds by grabbing Harry's godfather by the collar of his robes and dragging him back by a foot.

"If you hadn't noticed, Sirius," Malfoy murmurs, obviously trying to speak lowly enough that Harry can't hear, "Severus is distracting your godson from panicking in this situation." Sirius opens his mouth, then seems to reconsider his position, and just scowls at Snape as he comes back to Harry. Harry isn't panicking. In fact, he feels surprisingly calm: the idea that someone's just tried to poison him settles in his mind like a stone, but doesn't really cause him any undue distress. Maybe he's starting to get used to attempted murder - it would make sense, at this point.

"I'm not panicking," Harry says, accepting the glass of water Lucius pushes into his hand. He drinks from it greedily, letting it soothe the prickling sensation in his throat, and he looks down at the bezoar in his other hand. "Do you just keep these to hand?" Bezoars seem a strange thing to keep immediately in reach, but Lucius gives him a serious little look.

"I'm poisoned rather often," Lucius says dispassionately, settling on the edge of the sofa and looking down at Harry with his silver brows furrowed and an expression of concern on his face. "Are you alright?"

"Fine," Harry says, swallowing hard.

"Was that the whole plan, Malfoy? Bring my godson here and then get him killed?" Snape rolls his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose for a moment, and Harry watches him as he makes his way towards the door.

"I'll speak to Narcissa, Lucius, and find Ms Lovegood amidst the chaos." Lucius nods his head, pouring a glass of something else for Harry, and Harry is relieved to find when it touches his lips that it's pumpkin juice.

"Were I to kill Harry, as I'm sure the young man is aware, I wouldn't be so stupid as to do it in my own home," Lucius says. Sirius shuts his mouth for a little while, but he's all but vibrating with anger, and Harry puts his hand on his godfather's arm, hoping he'll just calm down. "Now, we can call in Bartemius Crouch and see that he creates an investigation," Lucius says quietly, "Or-"

"We keep it under our hats, don't panic anyone unnecessarily, and bide our time. Yeah, I've already made my decision." Harry speaks firmly, considering it carefully. He doesn't want everyone in the next room to fuss over him, and he especially doesn't want this whole ordeal to appear in the Prophet.

"Harry!" Sirius protests sharply.

"No, Sirius - if Aurors get involved, I won't get any whys or hows, and I'll probably end up with some bodyguard. It'll be all over the papers, there'll be all this ridiculous fuss..." Harry shakes his head. "No." Lucius gives a small nod of his head, and Sirius looks between the two of them, shaking his head.

"Strange things happen to people in Slytherin," he says with a mild element of disgust.

"Sirius," Harry says quietly, "Can you go see if Luna's alright? I feel really bad that I brought her here, and I know that Mrs Malfoy is probably sorting stuff out, but-" Sirius is standing immediately, nodding his head and obviously ready to do his duty as a devoted godfather: he leaves the room in a hurry, shutting the door behind him, and Harry looks at Lucius' back. He's pouring a drink of some amber liquid that smokes slightly, and Harry guesses he's looking at Firewhiskey.

"You didn't do it, did you?" Harry asks quietly, and Lucius turns to stare at him, his eyes widening slightly. He doesn't look irked like he had with Sirius - he looks honestly offended, and Harry's glad of that.

"No," he says firmly, taking a sip of his drink and staring at Harry coolly. "I would never."

"Never?" Harry asks.

"Never," Lucius says. "You're a friend of Draco's, and no less, a young man I know."

"I believe you," Harry says, and he actually does - Pureblood honour is a weird thing, full of contradictions, but in some ways it's simple. "Can I ask you a favour?"

"Of course," Lucius assures him.

"Can you show me your left arm?" Lucius stares down at him, his lips pressed tightly together. The question has shocked him, but Harry just needs to know, needs to know. And even without Lucius rolling up his sleeve to show Harry, Harry already knows what he'd see there.

"Harry, I-"

"Never," Harry repeats again. "Even if he came back tomorrow?" Lucius' nostrils flare, and his grip is so tight on his glass it looks like it might shatter at any moment, but Harry doesn't break the other man's gaze or shrink back from him. "Even then, you wouldn't?"

"Even then," Lucius says quietly, in a very serious tone. "Draco told me what happened in your first year - Quirrell, the Dark Lord, the Philosopher's Stone. Were Draco to have reached that final chamber with you, he would have been killed with no remorse."

"Okay," Harry says. Lucius icy gaze is focused on Harry's face, scanning his features.

"Okay?" he repeats. "What does that mean?"

"I can't out you as a Death Eater, or someone would have done so already. Can't kill you. I can take your word that you won't try and murder me anytime soon, though, and just bide my time." Lucius opens his mouth to say something, but the door comes open, and Snape slips into the room.

"People are beginning to notice your absence, Lucius." Snape leans against the wall, his arms crossed over his chest, and Harry watches him.

"Is Slughorn blabbering?" Lucius asks tersely, and Snape gives a slow, slow shake of his head.

"No. I've told him it was a mere allergy. He's drunk." Snape says this with an obvious disgust, curling his lip slightly, but Lucius just nods his head. "Go, Potter. Take care not of what you eat and drink."

"Yes, sir," Harry agrees, and he rushes out of the little room and into the hall again, quickly finding Luna. He glances around the room, at Percy and Draco, Daphne, Pansy, Theodore, Frank, at Snape and Gudgeon, at Cedric Diggory and Septima Vector. Three attempts to kill him so far, and whoever they were must have had access to Hogwarts.

All of a sudden, he feels very, very tired of all this stuff.

* * *

The last of the guests filter out of the doors of the Manor at around eleven o'clock, slowly, and in dribs and drabs. Sirius is Apparating Luna home, and Harry waits with Draco at a table in a comfortable little lounge. He's tired, fatigue weighting heavily on him, and he tries not to think about the mark he knows is on Lucius Malfoy's arm. "You alright?" Harry asks as Draco gives a little yawn, and the other boy shrugs.

"Fine," he says. "No one's tried to kill me tonight."

"Don't get too jealous," Harry replies. "Or your Christmas present will be a knife in the back." Draco laughs. Gryffindors, Harry has discovered, don't take as well to this kind of humour as Slytherins do.

"Speaking of," comes a voice from behind them, and Narcissa enters the room with five matching packages flanking her. "Let's get onto something more cheerful, shall we?" Draco smiles, and Harry pulls his chair back, letting Narcissa sit next to him as Lucius settles himself by Draco. "Merry Christmas, boys."

"Merry Christmas," Harry says with the Malfoy men, and he reaches for the gift the Malfoys' have got him.

* * *

"Those are nice," Sirius admits, sounding almost annoyed as Harry carefully sets the new set of robes on a hanger to put in his wardrobe. They are nice: the robes are a deep, plum red with golden hummingbirds embroidered on their long sleeves and on their hood, and despite the Gryffindor colours, he likes them. They really did spend far too much on him. "You excited for tomorrow?"

"Yeah," Harry says quietly. "Yeah, I am. Just me, you and Remus, right?"

"It's not how it should be," Sirius murmurs in a wistful tone. "Your first Christmas, it was the six of us. Me, Remus, James and Peter, then Lily, and you." His fists clench at his sides, and Sirius grits his teeth. "I bet he was spying on us even then. A bloody Death Eater." The anger fades a little from Sirius' face, and for a few seconds he just looks sad - sad, and utterly exhausted.

"Don't think about it," Harry advises. "Merry Christmas, Sirius."

"Merry Christmas, kid," Sirius returns, and he offers Harry a small smile as he pulls his door shut. Harry glances at the clock on his bookshelf, which is ticking slowly towards midnight: he feels tired, but not tired enough to sleep, and so he picks up the Prophet he'd received and not even glanced at that morning. When he settles in his armchair, Hedwig joins him, settling herself on the back of the seat and nuzzling the top of Harry's head affectionately.

"Merry Christmas, Hedwig," he murmurs, reaching up to give her a little scratch on the belly. Catching his eye on the back page of the Prophet is a private advert, asking for any and all information about Muggle explosives. Harry recognizes the name printed in neat letters at its base: Jacqueline Flockhart.


	52. Year Three: Lockhart Lovers

Harry's head pounds. His ears ring. There's blackness at the edges of his vision, and one lens of his glasses is smashed so badly he can barely see out of it.

 _We met the Grangers for lunch. I sat with Hermione. I ordered- What did I order?_

His hands hurt, stinging pain running over his palms, and he awkwardly pulls himself to his knees, looking down at them: his hands are bloody and raw, covered in sharp little grazes.

 _We decided to go to Diagon Alley and browse a little. Remus and Sirius were looking at telescopes, Sirius made a joke about folding telescopes. We laughed. I laughed. Then- Then?_

Harry looks blearily around, trying to focus his eyes to focus; the side of his head feels wet, his hair stuck down to the side of his face, but he knows it isn't raining. His head doesn't hurt, not exactly, but he knows that it's bleeding. Rubble, shrapnel and pieces of junk are strewn all around the alley: the explosion had come from a carpenter's shop a few storefronts away, and it had blown directly through the potions store and the astronomy one.

A cauldron. It had been a cauldron that had hit him in the head, skimmed him with its edge: the edge of it glints silver and red in the December sun.

He sees the sleeve of Sirius' green robes sticking out from under a beam; Remus is nowhere to be seen; Hermione lies on her belly beside him, unmoving. Wood shavings and chips of brick dust her hair, and there's a jagged tear up one side of her arm. Harry can't really breathe, and he feels awkward, disoriented.

There's a man stood in the middle of Diagon Alley, and he's laughing. Harry can't hear him - all he can hear is the pounding, loud ring of his own ears - but he can see his open mouth, see the wand in his hand, see that he's unscathed.

 _He went through the wall before us,_ Harry remembers. _I recognize the ribbons in his robes._

Harry stumbles as he tries to stand: it hurts to pull in the big exhalation he does, and he raises his wand, doing his level best to focus on the figure before him. "Stupefy!" he yells, and he feels the shift in his throat, but the word he says sounds far away: the beam hits, and the man tumbles to the ground.

Harry stands in the middle of it all, staring at the chaos around him: a woman comes forwards, puts her hand on Harry's shoulder and pushes him gently to sit down on the floor. Her robes are important. They're a bright colour, they're a healer's robes. A mediwitch. She's talking, but Harry can't hear her, and the blackness is beginning to overtake more of his vision. He can see odd colours in front of his eyes, and he feels himself retch.

 _What did I order for lunch? I can't remember._

* * *

"Is Sirius okay?" Harry asks hoarsely as Remus enters the room. Harry sits cross-legged on Hermione's bed, his own neglected. They both look a mess, he's aware - the cut on Harry's head has been healed, but his hair is still stuck down to his head by caked blood, and Hermione looks positively grey where she's covered with concrete dust. Blood is soaked into her sleeves and the chest of her robes, and Harry knows that the both of them look like they're extras in a horror movie.

"He'll be fine," Remus says. There's a short, jagged cut across Remus' jaw that he obviously hasn't had healed: it's beginning to close itself up, slowly, but it makes Remus look somehow more haggard than he usually does. "He has a few broken ribs, and the blast dislocated his hip, but they're healing him up."

"What happened?" Hermione asks, before giving a sharp, sudden squeak of noise.

"That's the Skele-Gro," Harry supplies, looking sympathetically at Hermione's left hand, which she's currently holding flat on a board. "It feels weird, I know, but it shouldn't take long to fix the bones." Hermione grits her teeth, nodding her head, and she looks back to Remus. He sits on the edge of Harry's bed, letting out a low sigh and rubbing his hands up the sides of his cheeks.

"The man Harry stunned - his name is Chad Arnett. He's American, used to run a haberdashery on Slip's Crescent, off Diagon Alley. He set explosives up along the street, blew them all apart." Remus breathes in. "We don't know why he did it. He's in the Ministry right now, the Aurors took him in."

"Is anyone dead?" Harry asks. Hermione gasps, glancing at him, but then she looks desperately to Remus for the answer: she hadn't thought about that until now, Harry can see, and she's as relieved as Harry is when Remus shakes his head.

"Some serious injuries here and there. The assistant in the apothecary was in the supply cupboard when the blast hit, and she was hit by thirty or forty potions at once, let alone the glass holding them in their bottles." Harry had vomited earlier, emptied what felt like his entire body, but the thought of that makes him gag slightly. "No one's died, though, and no one is expected to."

"Hermione!" comes a call from the edge of the room, and Mr and Mrs Granger run forwards: Mr Granger throws his arms around Hermione, and Mrs Granger does the same to Harry before they swap places. Hermione coughs hard, doing her best to keep her hand still as Mr and Mrs Granger sit themselves down. "Are you alright, Remus? Is Sirius? Arthur Weasley had to accompany us here - we were in the ice cream parlour, still..."

"Where is Arthur?" Remus asks.

"He's gone to see Sirius," Mrs Granger explains. "Look, why don't you and Jon go find them? I'll stay with these two." Remus and Mr Granger nod, leaving the room, and Mrs Granger looks down at Harry and Hermione, her hand over her mouth.

"Are you and Dad okay?" Hermione asks, and Mrs Granger nods her head.

"Yes, darling: we were talking to Mr Fortescue. We heard the explosion, of course, but no one would let us through."

"That's good," Harry says quietly. "No offence, Mrs Granger, obviously, but a wizard's body can take more than a Muggle's. If there'd been a secondary blast you could really have been hurt."

"Like you two, you mean?" Mrs Granger says, and Harry gives a rueful little laugh that makes his chest hurt.

"Maybe," Harry says. "Maybe."

* * *

"Sirius needs to stay here overnight," Remus says quietly, meeting Harry's eyes in the mirror. Harry sighs, carefully washing a little more of the blood on his face into the sink. Remus comes forwards to help, but Harry shakes his head, pushing the other man back and holding his wand up to wash off the last of the red slick sticking to him. "I thought if I took you home tonight-"

"No," Harry says. "I'll stay here, thanks." Remus sighs.

"Harry, you can't. You-"

"Look, Remus," Harry says, and he turns, looking at the man for a few moments. Harry feels tired, and he can see from the mirror that his face is pale, but he feels a little anger nonetheless. Yesterday had been awkward enough - Remus, Sirius and Harry had opened presents together, had a little dinner, and Harry had felt like Remus shouldn't have been there. He and Sirius were friends, sure, but Remus keeps acting like he's Harry's godfather, like he has any right to fuss over Harry's well-being. "I don't mind that you and Sirius are bosom buddies, but I don't care that you knew my dad before the war. I don't care if you were best friends - Hell, I don't care if you, Dad and Sirius had some illicit, secret affair, or if you were all swingers with my mum!

"You didn't come for me. You didn't help me. I didn't even know you bloody existed until this year, so stop acting like you're my guardian, or a weird uncle, or anything like that. Sirius is my godfather, Remus - his excuse for not being there was twelve years in Azkaban. What was yours?" Remus pales slightly, staring at Harry with his mouth slightly agape and his eyes tortured, but Harry doesn't care. Harry's too tired to care, too angry to care. "You don't get to do this! You don't get to just come into my life because Sirius has. Just stop it, alright?"

Harry shoves his wand into his pocket, pushing his wet hair back, and he leaves the bathroom as quickly as he can, heading down to Sirius' room. They'd settled him in a private room, out of the way of the wards - he's covered in the most terrible bruising, and a little of his hair had been ripped from his scalp as they'd pulled him out of the rubble: he looks an utter mess, but Harry doesn't care.

"Oh, you look better," Sirius says casually. "I like this slicked back look."

"Thanks," Harry says sarcastically. "I try and look good for you." Sirius laughs, but he regrets it immediately, and does his best to stop himself. Breathing shallowly with his eyes closed, Sirius concentrates for a few seconds, and then he glances back to Harry.

"Remus is going to take you home."

"No," Harry says. "He's not." Sirius frowns at him, furrowing his brow in obvious perplexity. "I don't want to leave you, Sirius," Harry explains, and it's the truth. "I'll stay here." Sirius expression softens, and he gives a nod of his head, patting the edge of his bed.

Harry sits down, and he and Sirius begin to talk about anything and everything - except, obviously, everything that had happened that day. Harry sees Remus hover in the doorway, but he leaves soon enough, and Harry is grateful for that.

* * *

"Forty people injured," Harry reads from the Prophet. "Four businesses experiencing structural damage, twelve more heavily affected." Hermione shakes her head, leaning back against the seat. Crookshanks sits next to her, sprawled out in a patch of sun coming in through the window, is belly on display. "Chad Arnett, haberdasher and ex-President of the Official Gilderoy Lockhart fanclub is being shipped out to Azkaban today."

"Do they actually say that?" Hermione asks, furrowing her brow. "That he was president of...?"

"Yeah," Harry says, nodding his head as he looks at the photograph of Arnett in the paper, his arms thrown around a slightly uncomfortable looking Lockhart. "He said at his trial he wanted Lockhart free."

"Talk about devotion to his cause," Hermione says quietly, looking horrified, and Harry nods his head, dropping the paper aside and shaking his head. Hermione sighs, gently petting Crookshanks' chin and letting him let out his jet-engine purr. "I can't believe someone would do something like that."

"Especially in the name of a pillock like Lockhart." Harry says, and Hermione snorts, looking out of the window. The Hogwarts Express chugs along at its usual quick pace: the last few days had mostly involved staying inside and doing jigsaws with Sirius - Harry hadn't felt like going out anywhere after what had happened on Boxing Day. "Then again, Gladys keeps trying to do me in to."

"We don't know that it's just for Lockhart, though," Hermione argues with a mild element of reproach.

"She's got a framed photo of him on her desk," Harry points out, and Hermione makes a face as she remembers the fact.

"Yeah," she admits. "It's just for Lockhart." They'd discussed the matter last night, when Mr and Mrs Granger had let her stay at Sirius'. They'd narrowed down those responsible, and while Sirius had offered (four times) his theory that Snape was trying to kill Harry, they'd decided Gudgeon was probably the culprit. Harry isn't yet sure how exactly they're going to deal with it, but for the time being it's just to be accepted. "At least she's not very good at it."

A knock on the compartment door makes them look up, and Harry fights the irritation in his chest as he sees Remus in the doorway.

"Hello, Professor Lupin," Harry says pointedly. Remus' jaw tenses for a moment, but he steps inside and closes the compartment door behind him: he'd avoided Harry for the last few days, even when he was in Sirius' flat, but today it seems like he's determined. "Do you need something?"

"I was thinking last night," Remus says quietly, "And I believe Gladys Gudgeon is your would-be assassin."

"No!" Harry says, sarcasm dripping from his voice. "You don't say?" Remus blinks, staring at him.

"We were just talking about it," Hermione mildly replies, giving a sympathetic shrug of her shoulders.

"Well," Remus says. "I just wanted to let you know I'll keep an eye on her."

"Yeah, I'll tell Professor Snape, thanks," Harry says, and he ignores the hurt on Remus' face as he gives a small nod of his head and leaves. Harry presses his lips together, looking out of the window, and he can feel Hermione's stare. "What?"

"Why are you being so nasty to him all of a sudden? There could have been loads of reasons he couldn't take you in, Harry," she says. "I mean, he's obviously ill. Maybe he wasn't fit to." Harry huffs out an irritated noise - even if he couldn't have actually taken care of Harry for whatever reason, he could have spoken to him once, twice. He could have visited, told Harry about his parents, about magic, about literally anything.

"That's not enough, Hermione," Harry states, brooking no argument, and he lets Crookshanks clamber into his lap, stroking over the cat's bitten, scarred ears. "Too little, too late."


	53. Year Three: Flockhart's Locks

"And you believe Professor Gudgeon is attempting to kill you?" Snape asks, looking skeptical as he watches Harry from behind his desk. Harry crosses his arms over his chest, meeting his head of house's eyes and refusing to back down.

"Whoever it is has to have access at Hogwarts, or they wouldn't have been able to enchant the knight, and they would also need to have been at Lucius'-"

"Mr Malfoy's," Snape corrects.

"Lucius' party," Harry continues, ignoring him. "Let alone the whole thing with the unicorns - no one else has been nearly killed by magical livestock this year. And she has motive - she's got a picture of Lockhart on her desk, and I bet you she used to be in his fan club. I'm not asking you to send her to Azkaban this minute, sir! I just want you to you know, keep an eye on her." Snape stares at him for a long few moments, curling his lip before he finally replies.

"Is there no need to your arrogance, Potter? Do you truly believe me to be your personal guard?"

"You act like you are, half the time," Harry points out, and Snape scowls at him.

"Ten points from Slytherin." Harry scowls right back. "Go away, Potter. In the event of your death, I will investigate Professor Gudgeon's involvement to the best of my ability."

"That's all I wanted!" Harry retorts, and he leaves Snape's office, shutting the door behind him before he heads up to the great hall for breakfast. He has no Care of Magical Creatures today, at least, so his first day back in classes will hopefully be less than life-threatening. He settles himself down with Blaise and Theodore, who give him little grins.

"Amazed you survived the holiday," Theo says, and Harry wonders for a second if Draco had told him about the poison at the Christmas Gala, but then he says, "You just had to be in the middle of some madman's attack on Diagon Alley, didn't you?"

"Oh, you know me," Harry says, pretending to preen, "I do love to be at the centre of the action." Blaise snorts, and they settle into breakfast together.

It's a slow day - after so many days of just playing games and reading all day, being back in classes is something of a drag, but it's a relief, too: Harry really does enjoy a lot of his lessons, and it's nice to be using magic all day again. He'd been afforded just a warning for Stunning Arnett in Diagon Alley, but beyond that he hadn't been able to use any. He can't wait to be seventeen.

Assuming he lives that long, anyway.

* * *

"You alright, Ron?" Harry asks as he leaves the great hall that dinner: Weasley glances at him, obviously suspicious for a moment or two, and then he offers a small smile.

"Yeah, mate. I'm doing pretty well. Have a good Christmas?"

"Oh, yeah. I'll be wearing your mum's jumper all next Saturday." Ron laughs a little, and then he shakes his head.

"You won't be seeing me in mine. She made it maroon. I bloody hate maroon." Harry chuckles, and he gives the Gryffindor a little wave as he pushes the entrance hall's door open, stepping out into the courtyard. The moon is half-full but it's bright, and Harry sits down on one of the benches just outside the hall, enjoying the way the light of it gleams brightly on the water in the fountain.

It's cold outside, but the chilliness isn't biting - if anything, it's refreshing, and Harry decides to just enjoy it for a little bit. His gaze is caught by a bird flapping above him, and he looks up at it curiously: it's a screech owl with a golden ribbon around its neck, and it slows itself down as it approaches Harry, settling itself on the bench beside him and putting out its leg.

Harry frowns at it, wondering who's sent a letter to arrive at this time of night, but he takes the letter attached, having a glance over its contents.

 _Dear Harry Potter,_

 _I heard my Aunt Jackie talking about meeting you at the Malfoy Christmas Gala a few weeks back, and I just wanted to offer a little friendly advice. Jackie Flockhart? Absolutely bonkers. All her friends - Gladys, who's the Care of Magical Creatures teacher at Hogwarts - Sara Dean-Smith, Bonnie Darling or whoever? Much the same. Jackie was friends with Chad Arnett, to put this sort of thing in perspective._

 _I know it's probably weird of me to tell you this out of the blue, given that she's my aunt and that, but I just wanted to give you a warning._

 _She's not a fan of you after you "got" Gilderoy Lockhart sent to prison "for no reason", so just watch your back._

 _Feel free to write me,_

 _Joaquin Lockhart_

 _Flockhart's Locks_

 _19 Slip's Crescent_

Harry studies the curling handwriting on the page, and then he glances back into the entrance hall. It's a little past eight, and everyone will be heading up to their dormitories for the night: leaning behind the door for a moment, Harry pulls his cloak out of his back and pulls it over his head. Sirius had advised he keep it on hand with him, like his dad had used to do, just in case, and it's advice Harry is glad to take.

He makes his way quietly up the stairs and towards the Gryffindor common room, waiting for a gaggle of fifth year girls to say the Fat Lady's password and get the door open. He sees Hermione straight away, sat alone in a big armchair beside the fire: she has a book in her lap, and is utterly and completely focused on it.

"Hey," Harry whispers as he gets close enough, sitting on the edge of her chair.

"What are you doing?" Hermione hisses, keeping her gaze on her book.

"I've got something I need to show you." Harry goes quiet, leaning back against the arm of the chair and being careful to keep his feet under the cloak. No one really looks in Hermione's direction, though, and by half past nine the Gryffindors have gone up to their dorms. They're not asleep, Harry knows - he can hear laughter from different dormitories drifting down the stairs, but for the time being, they're out of the way.

Harry pulls the cloak off, folding it and slipping it back into the bottom of his bag, and he and Hermione sit on the sofa across from the fireplace. "Joaquin?" Hermione says, peering down at the page.

"Is that how it's pronounced?" Harry asks. "Wha-keen?"

"It's Spanish," Hermione explains, her gaze still focused on the parchment. "It means phoenix." Harry can't help himself: he sniggers. "Don't! It's quite a nice name. My parents-"

"They would not have called you that if you were a boy," Harry protests, horrified.

"It's a nice name, Harry!" Hermione argues, and Harry groans, putting his face in his hands. Hermione looks back to the letter, thoughtful, and says, "Well, at least this confirms the Lockhart thing. Didn't you say Jacqueline Lockhart put an advert in the paper, too?"

"Yeah," Harry says. "Asking about Muggle explosives." Hermione is silent for a few moments, glancing at him. "You thinking about Arnett?"

"Yes," Hermione answers quietly. "What sort of explosives did he use?"

"The paper never said," Harry answers. "What is with these people? Have you ever heard of these other two, Bonnie Darling and Sara Dean-Smith?"

"Bonnie Darling sells designs cleaning products, I think," Hermione says. "She's got all these different cleaning agents and stuff out - Mrs Weasley was buying Darling Doxycide in Diagon Alley last summer. She's listed as a contributor in Lockhart's book about household pests."

"How do you remember this stuff?"

"There was a picture of her," Hermione says. "I remember thinking her hair was too blonde to be real."

"So, this team of five people love Gilderoy Lockhart, and presumably all want me dead, but aren't very good at managing it. Great. Just fabulous." Hermione laughs, passing him the letter back, and he waggles his finger at her. "Don't you laugh, now. It'll be you, next."

"I doubt it," she says, and she leans back against the sofa. He drops the letter into his bag, to be set with the rest of his letters tonight, and he leans back too, facing her. "At least you've got me."

"That's true," Harry says. "Wish I could trade you in for a better model, but you know-" Hermione slaps his shoulder, and Harry laughs, keeping her gaze and smiling at her fondly. "No, really, Hermione, thanks. I'm glad you're here."

"I'm glad I'm here too," she murmurs. He's aware, suddenly, of how close they are on the sofa: there's not even half a foot of space between them, and the Gryffindor common room is warm with its thick carpets and the crackling fire beside them. The silence between them grows, pregnant, and Harry licks his lips nervously as Hermione leans towards him slightly. He bridges the gap, hesitating for a second, and then his mouth meets hers: it's wet, and odd, and when her tongue brushes his he pulls himself back, laughing.

Hermione is laughing too, hiding her face in her hands.

"Well, let's never do that again," Harry says.

"Yeah, that was terrible," she replies, biting her lip to try and stop herself from giggling too badly. "You sure you're not gay?"

"Shut up!" Harry says, shoving her, and they share a wide grin. "I hope boys are better kissers than you."

"Me too," Hermione agrees philosophically, "The girls too, I suppose, for your sake." Harry shakes his head, leaning forwards and pulling up his bag. "You heading to bed?"

"Yeah," Harry says. "Night, Hermione. Bet you I'll get a decent kiss from someone before you will."

"Bet not taken, because I'm not that cruel," Hermione retorts, and Harry laughs, running over to the portrait and pushing it open.

* * *

"There you are!" Blaise says as Harry enters his and Draco's bedroom. Theodore and Draco are sat together on Draco's bed, but Blaise is sprawled across Harry's. "We did wonder."

"Do you two not like your room or something?" Harry asks, kicking the door shut and dropping his bag beside his bed.

"We like the atmosphere in this one," Theodore answers. "We're feeling Lixie's absence keenly, though."

"I forgot to pack her," Harry admits, looking at the blank space beside his bed. "I've got one of Celestina Warbeck, but it's just not the same." Blaise snorts, drawing his legs back so Harry can sit against the footboard of his bed. "What are you talking about?"

"We're making fun of Draco," Theodore says, and Draco kicks the other boy in the thigh. "Because he's young and ignorant."

"Isn't Draco older than you, Theo?" Blaise asks.

"Shush."

"I'm not any more ignorant than he is," Draco maintains sharply, jabbing his finger at Harry. "Do you know what a Dead Arm Charm is?" Harry furrows his brow, tilting his head slightly to the side.

"Uh, no?"

"Ha!" Draco says triumphantly.

"It's different for him to not to know something," Blaise says, shaking his head, and Harry frowns at him.

"And why's that?"

"Because, Potter. You're an idiot." Harry grabs a a pillow, doing his best to smother Blaise with it, and the two of them wrestle across his bed for a minute until Harry manages to shove him off and onto the floor. Blaise accepts it, lying on his back on the carpet, and he crosses his arms over his chest. "What about the Dead Arm Charm, anyway?"

"I got an incantation," Theo says, and Blaise sits up, looking at him seriously. "My cousin Glyn was over for Christmas, and he left a copy of this behind when he went home." Theo holds a bright purple book up, emblazoned with its title in silver: Sex Charms for The Discerning Solo Artist. Harry reaches for it, but Blaise grabs it first, opening it up in his lap and laughing.

"What does it do?" Draco and Harry demand at the same time, and Theo snorts.

"Look, Harry, give me your right arm. Katarnarkis." Theo taps the back of Harry's hand, and he shivers, feeling a strange tingling run up his arm, but after it's passed, he doesn't feel anything. He gives Theodore a perplexed look, but the other boy just smirks. "Touch your nose." Harry reaches up, touching his nose, and then he lets out a surprised noise.

"That's so weird!" he declares. He can move his arm just fine, but touching his nose feels like someone else is touching him, like he's momentarily detached it. "How is this a sex charm?"

"The idea is touching something other than your nose, you dunce," Blaise says from the floor.

"Oh," Harry says. "Let me see that book-"

"No, I'm reading it!" Blaise retorts, and Harry groans, throwing himself onto the bed.

"Now, now, boys," Theo says. "Learn to share. It's not like we can get another copy."

"Is it from that shop on Fargo Alley?" Draco asks, not showing especial interest. "The one with the ageline?"

"The very one," Theo agrees, giving a nod of his head. "Shame. They've got sex books, posters that strip for you, all sorts of dirty stuff." Harry sighs. Now he really wishes he was seventeen already.

"Hey, guys," Harry asks, leaning back. "Someone mentioned Flockhart's Locks the other day - what is that?"

"It's a hairdresser on Slip's Crescent," Draco answers. "It's where Mother and Father get their hair done."

"It's expensive, then?" Draco frowns at him.

"Well, I suppose. Flockhart's a good hairdresser, though, so it's well worth the money." Harry nods his head, lying on his side in bed and doing his best to read over Blaise's shoulder about lubricant conjuration. "Why do you ask?"

"Oh, no real reason," Harry says, giving a shrug. "Sirius mentioned it, that's all."


	54. Year Three: Trevor

"Does anyone here have a toad?" yells Francois, and Harry sticks his head out of the dorm, peering at it.

"That's Trevor," Harry says, coming out of his and Draco's room, putting out his hands. "He's Neville Longbottom's."

"How the Hell did it get down here?" Frank demands, and Harry shrugs his shoulders.

"He gets everywhere, Frank. They found him at the top of the Astronomy Tower last May." The prefect raises his eyebrows, glancing down at Trevor appraisingly. The toad gives a rather feeble croak, and Frank hands it over. Shouldering his bag, Harry makes his way out of the dorm - it's a Friday, and although it's early in the morning he can always just keep Trevor to hand until Neville comes down to breakfast.

"You're alright, aren't you, Trevor?" Harry says quietly, absently thumbing over the toad's head as he walks up towards the entrance hall, weaving through the familiar dungeon passageways. "Just a bit of an escape artist." Trevor croaks, and Harry smiles at him. The great hall, as expected, is almost devoid of anyone: Snape and Sinistra are the sole teachers at the table, and they're engaged in quiet conversation; the only students are a few prefects all sat together on the Hufflepuff table. "Hey, Percy. You want to take this off my hands?"

"Oh, for goodness' sake, Trevor," Percy scolds, taking the toad from Harry, and Harry gives the older boy a little nod before he backs out of the hall. It's still dark outside, and cloud obscures the bare amount of light there is: the barest sliver of the full moon is visible as it disappears beneath the horizon. Harry sees Gladys Gudgeon in the courtyard, and he meets her gaze as she looks up from the fountain.

"Mr Potter," she says, arching one of her greying brows. He walks towards her: this close to the doors of the castle, he feels fairly confident, and he fingers his wand in the pocket of his robes.

"Professor Gudgeon," Harry replies. "D'you mind if I ask you a question?"

"Please, young man," she says, spreading her hands. "Do."

"Are you trying to emulate Lockhart? I mean, you keep trying to kill me, but you're so bad at it - I can't help but feel it's some kind of tribute act." She laughs. It's a high, musical laugh - the sort of laugh Harry imagines would fit in well at an ambassador's dinner party, and Gudgeon smiles beatifically at him.

"Do you honestly believe I'm trying to kill you, Mr Potter?"

"What, you're denying it?"

"Of course!" Harry lets out a surprised little laugh, shaking his head.

"What, you didn't enchant that night, those bludgers-"

"Of course I did," she interrupts, still smiling that high-class smile and showing all of her teeth, "But you don't truly believe any of that was going to kill you, do you?" Harry falters, and he stares at her, tilting his head slightly to the side.

"I- sorry, what?"

"Mr Potter, I'm not some second year Hufflepuff doing my level best to do you in. I'm not an idiot - if I wanted to kill you, I'd have no trouble at all." Harry opens his mouth, then closes it, unsure how to respond to this - on the one hand, it's obvious that anyone really trying to kill him is going the wrong way about it. Even Dobby's attempts had been generally more potentially lethal, and he'd been trying to keep Harry alive.

"Why the Hell are you doing it, then?"

"Why not?" Gudgeon asks, giving a delicate shrug of her violet-clad shoulders. "It's enjoyable to watch you struggle. You did, after all, make Mr Lockhart flustered and uncomfortable a fair few times last year."

"Yeah, but not by poisoning him!" Harry snaps.

"Hardly my fault you lacked creativity, Potter," Gudgeon says, and she laughs again, walking away through the courtyard and down the path, out towards the greenhouses. Harry stands in silence as the sun begins to rise, perplexed. What sort of woman goes to that kind of effort to not kill someone?

"Harry!" comes a call from the entrance hall, and Harry sees Ginny and Luna peering out of the entrance hall at him. "You want to eat breakfast with us?"

"Sure, sure," Harry says, glancing back at Gudgeon's retreating form, and he makes his way into the great hall again, settling at the Ravenclaw table with the two girls. He's quieter than usual. He needs time to think.

* * *

The vague sense of triumph Harry had felt on the train home has utterly dissipated. "What do you mean, she isn't trying to kill you?" Hermione asks, staring across the table at him.

"She just said, straight to my face, she was doing it to make me uncomfortable. Not to actually kill me - because obviously none of that stuff would work. She's just doing it because she can." He'd seen one of Mrs Figg's cats crowd a mouse into corner, once, and it had batted at it for ages: it hadn't really hurt the thing, but it had pushed at it and played with it, herding it one way and that.

That's how Harry feels right now, and he's too surprised to be angry about it. The knowledge just settles in his belly like a weight.

"Why's she here, then?" Hermione asks, and Harry glances up from where he'd been staring into space.

"What?"

"Well, think about it, Harry. If she isn't actually here to kill you, why is she here?" Harry blinks.

"I don't know," he admits. "I mean- she can't just have wanted the job, randomly, or she wouldn't be doing this to me. It wouldn't be worth risking getting fired." He meets Hermione's eyes. "Why is she here?"

"No idea," Hermione answers. "Maybe we should try to find out."

"You've gotten so rebellious," Harry says. "I love it."

* * *

Harry stares down at the notes on his desk, frowning. Lupin is late to class today, but he doesn't really care: it gives him more time to think. _GLADYS GUDGEON. Loves Lockhart. Jacqueline Flockhart Muggle explosives in newspaper. Chad Arnett used Muggle explosives? Test? Blow thing up? Blow Hogwarts up?_ The door is thrown open, and Snape stalks into the room. Harry shoves his notes under his defence text book.

"Werewolves," Snape says simply. "They are our subject."

* * *

Harry and Hermione both walk slowly out of the room. Harry thinks of the full moon he'd seen that morning, tucking itself carefully behind the horizon: beside him, Hermione is equally slow about moving, her expression the same mask of realization as Harry's.

"How can we not have figured this out?"

"Snape hates him," Harry whispers. "He wanted us to figure it out. So we'd get him kicked off the staff."

"Do you want to?" Hermione asks. Harry shakes his head. He wonders, vaguely, how easy it is for a werewolf to get custody of his friend's son. Then, he thinks of Lycanthropy In Society, and wonders how easy it is for werewolves to even have friends.

He'd never asked about Remus' Animagus form. He hadn't even thought about it - Sirius had skipped so smoothly over the subject it had never even occurred to him to ask. Hermione and Harry move at a measured pace until they reach the Defence office, and Harry doesn't even bother to knock: quietly, he just pushes the door open.

Remus is asleep in the armchair beside his desk, his skin a sickly white, his position painful to even look at. Hermione closes the door quietly behind them, and she sets the kettle on the counter to boil, grasping at a cup and tea bag for him.

"Remus," Harry murmurs quietly: he reaches out, gently touching the other man's shoulder. The werewolf flinches, lurching awake, and he looks wildly around the room before his gaze calms slightly, becoming more guarded. "Snape just taught us."

"Oh, yes," Remus says hoarsely, sitting up in his chair and doing his best to straighten out his tired, worn-out robes. "I, er, I've been feeling under the weather-" Hermione pushes the steaming cup of tea silently into his hands, and he glances down at it, obviously surprised. "Oh. Thank- thank you, Hermione."

"He didn't teach us about hinkypunks," Harry says.

"Or grindylows," Hermione agrees. "He moved ahead in the curriculum. To werewolves." Remus sips slowly at his tea, staring between the two of them.

"Oh," he says succinctly.

"Yeah," Harry says. "We wanted to talk."

"Lock the door, Hermione," Remus murmurs, setting his mug down on his desk, and Harry drags over two chairs for he and Hermione to sit in. Remus looks exhausted, but Harry has too many questions to wait.

* * *

"Shit," Hermione hisses as they leave Remus' office.

"What?"

"I've got Arithmancy and I'm late!" Hermione runs off down the corridor, at high speed, and Harry wanders alone. He doesn't really want to go anywhere in particular, so he just meanders in the rough direction of the Astronomy Tower, thinking he might sit up there for a while. It's technically out of bounds, but the Chamber of Secrets doesn't really have the same calming atmosphere.

He tries to ignore the guilt that claws at the back of his mind, and instead he pushes himself to think about Gladys Gudgeon again, instead of Remus Lupin. He runs over the list in his head, of what Flockhart had said, of what Arnett had done. It had to be all connected, but what exactly was the plan? Why was Gudgeon at Hogwarts?

There's an odd noise in the corridor, and Harry glances down it. One of the doors is slightly ajar, and he pushes it open, peering inside. He's never been to this part of the castle before, but he vaguely knows where it is - he's seen Ron Weasley in his Muggle Studies class on the Marauder's Map, and this is the Muggle Studies office.

At her desk, Charity Burbage is crying.

"Uh, Professor?" Harry asks, and she startles, staring at him. Her eyes are red-rimmed, her face wet with tears, and Harry hovers, awkwardly. "Are you okay, Ma'am? Do you want me to make you some tea?" She lets out another wet sound, putting her hand over her mouth, and Harry elects to make tea nonetheless, glancing around for her kettle. She has a normal, cast-iron one over a burner, and Harry sets it to boil, but beside it, with a little label, is a Muggle one. "I, er, I guess this one doesn't work at Hogwarts, huh?"

Burbage mutely shakes her head, drawing in ragged little breaths as she watches him, and Harry makes her tea as quickly as he can, dropping in some milk and sugar before bringing it over to her. She sips at it, staring into the middle distance, and then she offers him a very, very weak smile.

"You're- Harry, aren't you? Harry Potter?" He nods, and she smiles at him.

"I went to school with your mother," she says. "I was the year above - the reason I took Muggle Studies in the first place, actually. Such a nice girl." She sniffles, wiping at her nose with a tissue, and Harry slowly sits down. "I- I'm so sorry, I just got some bad news." Harry sort of wants to run as fast as he can down the corridor, but he's here now, and he can't just leave.

"What happened?" Harry asks, mildly unconvincingly.

"A few friends- Well, technically they're missing, but their house was covered in blood." A sob wells up in her throat, and she drinks from her mug. "They were Muggle Studies experts - studied Muggle military history, if you can believe it. Can't imagine doing something so dull."

Harry glances from Burbage to the animated poster of spark plugs pinned on the wall behind her, then back to her teary face. "Uh, yeah, no," he says awkwardly. "Can't imagine that." Letting out a quiet, woeful noise, Burbage leans back in her seat. "Do you want me to get you anything? I could, uh, I could go down for the kitchens for you...?"

"No, no, no," Burbage says, reaching over the desk and gently tapping Harry's hand. Her hand is slightly wet with her own tears. It's horrible. "Thank- thank you, Harry. I'll be alright, thank you." Harry nearly jumps out of his seat to get out of the room, and he pulls the door closed behind him.

In the hall, before his feet, is Trevor. Harry stares down at him, perplexed, but there's a croak from down the hall, and when Harry looks there are two more toads slowly making their way down the corridor. Harry hadn't even known Trevor wasn't the only toad at Hogwarts, but-

What the bloody Hell are they doing in the hallway?

* * *

"Sorry," Neville mumbles gratefully as Harry hands the toad over. Trevor is all but straining in Neville's hand, and Harry stares down at him, frowning. "He just keeps getting away."

"It's alright," Harry says. "It's just fine." What's not fine is the three toads on the ground beside him. They're following Harry like he's some sort of amphibious messiah, and Harry stares down at them, glancing to the one that's just making its way into the entrance hall.

"Potter," McGonagall says lowly. "Why are there toads in your pursuit?"

"I wish I could tell you," Harry admits. "I really wish I could." As he enters the great hall, Gudgeon meets his gaze, and she beams at him, giving a little wave. Harry scowls, and glaring at his entourage of green, warty followers, wishes the old biddy would go back to faux attempts at murder.


	55. Year Three: Seeing Dead People

For two weeks, Harry has toads following him to every class, to every meal, even to his dormitory at night. Hard as he tries, it's impossible to completely avoid them, and it's when he reaches under the bed for a lost quill that his fingers touch the reason wy: it's dried out, but when he pulls it into the light it's easily recognizable. The dead toad has runes carved into the flesh of its belly and its back, and Harry groans, pulling out the second one from under his bed.

He walks straight to Snape's office, and when he enters, Snape is bent over a cauldron, focusing carefully on it.

"Is that Remus' Wolfsbane?" he asks as he enters, and Snape makes a tch of sound, but otherwise ignores him. Harry waits patiently until Snape sets his stirrer aside, and the man turns to stare down at Harry. "What do I do with these?" Harry holds out the dead toads, and Snape glances from them to the two toads that had managed to follow Harry into the office.

"Where did you get them?"

"From under my bed," he answers, letting Snape take one of them and examine it. Harry hadn't closely examined the runes on the toad's corpse, but Snape does so with deep focus, arching his eyebrows slightly.

"An odd concentration of resources for a mere prank," he comments dryly, reaching for the other toad. Harry lets him take it, and Snape pulls a Size 1 cauldron out of a cupboard, setting it on the floor with a clatter. He drops the toads into it, and then he takes a fairly large, stoppered jug from a top shelf, pouring it into the cauldron.

There's a rather sickly, bubbling sound, and Harry does his best not to retch as he watches the toads melt into the hissing drink.

"What is that?" he demands.

"Acid," Snape replies. "The easiest way to destroy them." He points with one pale finger to the toads, who are no longer focused on Harry and are instead wandering the room. "It's a very old ritual, fiddly and... Disgusting. It affects non-sentient and semi-sentient beings to converge on a target."

"How?"

"One feeds its anchors the target's hair, blood, or flesh. Said anchors are dessicated, properly carved, and placed in decent proximity to the target. Then, one simply sits back and watches the convergence." Harry stares at Snape for a few long moments: the man had delivered the information simply, with a slight shrug of his shoulders.

"That's disgusting," Harry says.

"But effective," Snape points out, and he kicks the cauldron to the side. "Go away."

"Thanks," Harry says awkwardly, and Snape ignores him, looking back to the Wolfsbane on his desk. Sighing, Harry makes his way out of the room, shaking his head. He looks up the ritual that day, though: the ritual had been used by druids, and had once been called the Banding of Beasts. It had once been used to impress Muggles in ancient times, or to scare them - with the right anchors used, any semi-sentient creature could be compelled to follow a target.

There aren't explicit instructions as to the ritual in the old text, which isn't that surprising - most of the more dangerous magic in the library is talked about vaguely so that students don't attempt it - but it involves a lot of focus on lunar cycles and fiddly work with potions ingredients and different forms of magic.

It's an extremely odd thing to use to just make him a bit uncomfortable, and reading through the texts available, Harry can't understand why Gudgeon would send toads to follow him.

He keeps his eye on Gudgeon the next few days, and it's a Wednesday evening when Harry and Hermione are walking up from Hagrid's house that they see Gudgeon at the gates of Hogwarts. Harry and Hermione pull themselves under the Invisibility Cloak, rushing as fast as they can to see her accompany her visitors to the gates.

"You're sure they're ready?" a Scottish woman asks.

"Completely," Gudgeon replies. "The walls will be utterly destroyed. We'll get them out quite easily, ladies. I'll see you." The two women nod their heads, and they leave through the gates: Hermione and Harry watch as Gudgeon locks them closed again.

"Do you think she's going to try and blow Hogwarts up?" Harry whispers to Hermione, and he feels her shake her head.

"You can't. In the 40s, they got really paranoid about Muggle bombs from the war. Professor Flitwick was telling me about it one day - there are all sorts of charms so that you can't bring Muggle explosives over the threshold, and missiles and bombs dropped from above are just rerouted into the sea." They follow Gudgeon slowly up to the castle, slipping into the great hall for dinner, and Harry is pensive as he sits with Draco.

"What's wrong with you?"

"If there was one structure in Wizarding Britain that you could blow up to scare the population, and it wasn't Hogwarts, what would you choose?"

"Uh, the Ministry of Magic?" Theodore suggests.

"St Mungo's. Diagon Alley."

"The Knight Bus station is Aberystwyth."

"Hogsmeade." The Slytherins take it for a hypothetical - they eagerly drop into conversations about strategy and history, and they're all so focused on the discussion they don't realize that Harry doesn't join in. He listens to them as they talk back and forth, going from one target to another. None of them strike him as quite correct.

He looks up to Gudgeon where she sits at the table, chatting energetically with Flitwick, and he drums his fingers on the table in front of him.

He barely eats that night.

But he sleeps. Oh, Merlin, does he sleep.

* * *

Harry wakes with a harsh gasp at four thirty in the morning, grabbing tightly at the arm that had touched him, but he stops short as he realizes who the arm belongs to. "Get up, Potter," Snape orders cleanly, and he does the same to Draco, shaking the boy quickly out of his sleep. "Don't bother getting dressed - just put on your dressing gowns and your shoes. Now." Snape sweeps from the room, and Draco looks blearily around.

"Wha's goin' on?"

"Not sure," Harry says, putting on his glasses and grabbing his wand, slipping it into his dressing gown's pocket. "Come on, Draco. I think this is serious." They move into the corridor, which is full of confused, sleepy Slytherins, and prefects snap orders from the common room, ordering people into lines.

They move up ot the great hall in a big mass, and Harry can see the Hufflepuffs are being ushered in the same direction: the Ravenclaws are already in the room, and Flitwick is running back and forth, Conjuring chairs and beds for them to settle in. There's anxious, quiet chatter between the students, but it's obvious no one knows what's going on - the prefects look as pale, worried and tired as everyone else, and it's plain they have no inside knowledge.

Rain pounds loudly on the castle roofs, the enchantment looking more like that of the lake than the usual night sky, and Harry flinches along with every other student in the room as lightning flashes across the enchanted ceiling, followed by a loud blast of thunder.

Hermione beelines straight for Harry when she enters the room, and Harry reaches for her hand, holding it tightly as they look to the doors. Dumbledore is dressed in a silken purple nightshirt, a thick, fluffy dressing gown of a similar colour pulled over it, but despite the rather whimsical look of the outfit, he's as serious as Harry has ever seen him. His gaze doesn't twinkle in the slightest, and his lips remain pressed together as he looks around the room.

"Is everyone here?" he calls.

"All of the students, Headmaster," McGonagall replies. She puts her hand on Filch's shoulder, stopping him from leaving the room. Harry watches as they argue for a moment, and then Filch goes over to Flitwick, turning away from the doors. Other teachers filter into the room - Burbage, Sinistra, Vector, even Sybil Trelawney, who doesn't look as if she's stepped into the great hall in six lifetimes.

When Hagrid brings Fang into the room, pushing him to go and sit with the Weasley twins, Harry gestures for him to come over. "What's happening?" he asks hurriedly, and Hagrid just shakes his big, shaggy head.

"Dementors, Harry. They've left Azkaban."

"What do you mean?" Hermione asks sharply. "They can't leave Azkaban - they don't. There's an agreement."

"They've left," Hagrid says. "And they're headin' North. That's why we want you all in here. Safe, like."

"Where's Professor Gudgeon?" Harry asks, looking hurriedly around the room. He feels sick as he realizes the woman is nowhere to be seen, and he runs over what he'd heard her say that night. They'd get them out. That's what she'd said. They'd get them out. "Oh, my God."

"What?" Hermione asks.

"They're not just blowing things up," Harry says. "They're blowing up- They're not blowing anything up. Structural damage, Hermione. Chad Arnett's explosives in Diagon Alley didn't blow up the street or anything - they blew out walls." Hermione stares at him, her eyes flicking over his face, and he sees understanding and horror dawn on her face.

"They're going to break him out." Harry's blood feels cold in his veins, and he runs across the room, slipping to a stop in front of Snape and grabbing at his sleeve. Snape is in mid-conversation with Remus, the two of them talking rapidly, and Snape stares down at Harry's hand on him as if Harry's touch is going to give him cholera. "They're going to break him out," Harry says urgently. "The dementors are gone, because they're going to break him out."

"What the Hell are you babbling about, Potter?"

"The dementors have left Azkaban," Hermione says sharply. "Gudgeon, she was friends with Chad Arnett, who attacked Diagon Alley in December. They're going to blow out some of the walls in the jail - they're going to break Lockhart out."

"Oh, fuck," Remus says, and then shoves his hand over his mouth, looking horrified with himself, but Snape doesn't seem to hear him. "We need to-"

"Come," Snape orders, and Harry and Hermione follow after the two teachers, ignoring the protests from Frank Richelieu and Percy Weasley as they run out of the great hall and through the corridors. Snape snaps out a spell that breaks the door before them off their hinges, and Remus just kicks it down and out of the way, like it's normal - they step inside, and Harry looks around the empty set of staff quarters. There's only bare pieces of furniture, nothing on the walls - even the ugly fruit bowl on the table is empty.

Harry and Hermione keep close to the two professors as they walk back towards the great hall - for once, Snape isn't continuously putting jibes in Remus' direction, and the two of them speak quietly and seriously, using defensive terms Harry wishes he could understand.

Burbage, Flitwick, Sinistra and McGonagall are in the entrance hall, and Snape joins them. Lupin rushes to find Dumbledore with Hermione following him, but Harry hovers, listening to the staff members talk.

"We can't strengthen the wards against these," Flitwick says. "This isn't an attack by wizards - dementors are barely on this plane, Severus. If they come here, Patronuses are our best defence."

"Twelve Patronuses against several thousand dementors," Sinistra says sarcastically, her melodic voice ringing in the hall. "A perfect balance."

"There are other defences," Snape agrees, "We can-"

"If you dare suggest Fiendfyre-"

"It's one of the only things that destroys them!" Snape says urgently, and McGonagall lets out a sharp little noise of frustration.

"And it destroys everything else, Severus. Would you have the castle destroyed!?" Harry's never seen teachers argue like this, and the spectacle is fascinating despite the situation, but before he can listen any more Snape notices him.

"Go, Potter." Harry opens his mouth to refuse, but there's a loud pound on the entrance hall door before it's thrown open. Harry stops short, staring slack-jawed at the two figures standing in the wet darkness, soaked to their greying, greenish skin: they're dressed in rags, blood seeping through the white cloth from their chests and their backs, and when they step forward it's the unnatural, clumsy step of something no longer alive. Harry's seen Muggles try to emulate it in horror movies Dudley's secretly watched in the middle of the night, but this is so much worse: he can smell the rotting stink of the two bodies as they shuffle forwards, their limbs at odd, broken angles. They move like strings are holding them up, just barely.

"Oh, Merlin," Burbage cries out, staring at the two monsters in horror. "That's- Severus, that's-"

Harry recognizes them from their photo in the Gazette, even though Padraic Fenton's eyes are sunken deep into his head, even though Darla Fenton's hair is coming away in sickly clumps from her scalp.

"Stupefy!" Snape casts sharply, and the red beam hits one of the zombie-like figures, but it doesn't so much as stumble - the magic hits it and seems to just disappear.

Harry heaves in a breath, grabbing for his own wand as the figures shuffle forwards: all the teachers are casting spells, but none of them seem to have any effect, and Harry gets himself ready to cast. He can see their eyes, now: the two of them have white, empty eyes, and Harry's horrified to realize as they come closer to him that they're breathing. Their chests rise and fall in slow, shaky breaths that make quiet groans of sound, and Harry's faced Voldemort, but he hadn't scared him like these two living corpses do.

Harry stumbles back, down and towards the hall of staircases, but the two of them follow him: they're focused on him, only him.

Silhouetted by another shot of lightning, Harry sees the first dementor out on the hill, and he realizes with a sick shock down his spine that it's focused on him. Gudgeon had done the same ritual again, with the Fentons as anchors: the dementors are coming after him.


	56. Year Three: Azkaban's Fall

Harry needs to get outside. It's the only thing he can think of as he sees the billowing robes of the two dementors outside in the distance - they're coming towards the castle, but everyone's in the great hall, and he doesn't want to draw them inside.

"Bombarda!" Harry yells, and the male corpse flies backwards, away from him, chunks of red-grey flesh spattering across the wall, but barely any blood does the same - it's like they've been chilled, or- or exsanguinated, somehow.

"Reducto!" Flitwick squeaks out, and the walking corpse of Darla Fenton flies hard against the wall, hitting it with a sickening crack of bone as a fair bit of her chest and a few ribs are sent flying. Harry runs towards the front door, and Snape tries to grab at him, but he succeeds only in grasping at the hood of Harry's dressing gown.

He shrugs it off before Snape can get a better grasp, his slippers pounding wetly on the grey brick of the courtyard.

"Potter!" Snape yells, and Harry can hear the teachers in pursuit of him but he ignores them, focusing only on running forwards and through the courtyard, out onto the hillside of the Hogwarts grounds. He can see them in the sky, hundreds of them in the distance with their dark robes illuminated by moonlight and by lightning flashes: close to hand, there are maybe a dozen, and the chilly night air is made bitingly cold by their presence.

Rain water soaks into Harry's hair and the flannel of his pyjamas, drops of moisture clinging to his glasses, but he ignores it, stumbling down the hill. He can hear teachers yelling as they exit the castle, but he focuses just on the dementors, on dementors and Sirius - he thinks of Sirius and Remus at Christmas, thinks of laughing with Hermione after a terrible kiss by the Gryffindor fire, thinks of feeling like a Weasley sibling, thinks of the way he knows Sirius will hug him after all of this is over, and how he'll kiss the top of Harry's head.

"Expecto Patronum!" Harry screams, his voice twisted by the whistling wind, and the burst of white-blue light that flies from his wand has four hooves, a broad, tall body, and its antlers shine brilliantly silver as it lets out a silent warcry, charging at the dementors around him. They're forced back, drawing in their horrible, rattling breaths as Harry makes his way further down the hillside, drawing them further from the castle.

The two corpse puppets are slowly stumbling down the hill toward him.

"Sir!" Harry yells up the hillside, and he scrambles towards Snape, who is back to back with Charity Burbage, the both of them casting their Patronuses to the sky. "How do we destroy them?"

"Get inside!" Snape hisses.

"They'll follow me! They're the same as the toads!" Harry yells back, refusing to pack away his defiance, and Snape stares at the figures in the distance. "Can't you just use acid again?"

"Of course, Potter! Just find me a cauldron big enough!" Snape retorts - they have to shout to be heard over the howling wind, and Harry casts his Patronus again, rushing over the grass as the two corpses slowly step towards him. They're slow, at least - he's glad they're not actual dementors. "You saw the runes carved into the flesh of the toads? You need to destroy the runes carved into their flesh!"

"How the fuck am I meant to do that!?"

"Ten points from Slytherin!" squeaks Flitwick as he comes up behind Harry.

"Is this really the time?" Harry demands incredulously, and Flitwick rolls up his pink pyjama sleeves, brandishing his wand.

"Remember your explosive charm, Potter," Flitwick says, and Harry stares at the two sliding, slow figures.

"They're still alive," Harry says.

"They're not!" comes Burbage's voice as she ducks slightly, letting Snape cast at a dementor over their heads. "They're Inferi, Potter, they're not alive any more." But they're breathing, Harry wants to cry. They're breathing, how can they be Inferi?

But they're coming too close, and Harry doesn't want either of them touching him.

"Bombarda!" Harry yells, aiming at the male corpse's neck. He tries to remember where the runes had been carved into the toads - just the chest and the back, he thinks, but will it be the same for these things? The grey flesh comes apart easily once it's torn from the monster's body, and Harry hopes he doesn't step in any of it as he casts again, and again, and again.

Flitwick is doing the same beside him, but it gets worse - more Patronuses are flying over their heads, pushing back the dementors, but like Sinistra had said inside, there are too many dementors converging on Hogwarts for the Patronuses to be any good. They circle over head, occasionally dipping down towards Harry, completely focused on him - Harry doesn't think they're even aware of what's happening. There's a magical focus in their heads, and they want Harry.

It's hard work, constantly moving over the grass and casting a new Patronus whenever his fades: he's tired, and he's freezing cold and wet, and he feels like he's going to die at any moment. "Bombarda!" His spell misses the half-skeletal female corpse, hitting a standing stone and sending chunks of sharp stone flying through the air - Harry feels a thick, jagged piece of stone bite hard into the side of his cheek, smacking his teeth, and can only be grateful it didn't hit his eye.

Harry stumbles, slipping hard on muddy grass, and he loses one slipper: he kicks the other off too, his bare feet better able to gain purchase on the surface of the ground beneath him. "Expecto Patronum!" he yells, and he produces only silvery mist - the staff's Patronuses are flagging, too, and Harry looks to the stumbling body of the male corpse. The female lies still on the ground, missing most of its flesh, but the male is still moving.

Harry is exhausted, feels like he's going to be sick or faint or drop dead any second now, so he yells at the top of his lungs, casting forwards, "Bombarda maxima!" It hurts. Merlin, it hurts worse than anything else he's ever felt before - it hurts like it had in first year, the tearing, burning pain of magic biting and clawing under his skin, but he doesn't care: the skeletal figure bursts into shards of bone and gore, and Harry drags in a breath, dropping to his knees.

A hooded figure ducks down towards him, and he flinches away, but Hagrid lifts him off the ground, his brown cloak hanging heavily on his body. The dementors seem disoriented as they fly higher into the sky, and Harry chokes down a gag as he tastes his own blood in his mouth, dripping down from a cut on the side of his nose.

"Am I gonna die?" Harry asks hoarsely as Hagrid carries him inside, and then he chokes on his own blood, coughing and spitting it out onto the floor.

"Nah, nah, course not," Hagrid assures him, though he sounds doubtful. Harry struggles in the groundskeeper's arms, pushing himself onto the ground, and he tries to stand on his own two feet, but his knees are weak and he drops onto the floor in the entrance hall. He spits more blood on the ground, and then realizes the blood isn't coming from the cut on his mouth. He puts his thumb in his mouth, pressing, and the damaged gum shifts under his touch, dropping out the tooth it had been holding.

Putting his other hand to his cheek, he feels the thick, wet wound the stone had left earlier, cutting right into his flesh. He spits the tooth out, staring at it where it lies, surrounded by red, in his palm. He's been punched a lot of times in his life, but he's never been hit hard enough to knock out a tooth, and he can't believe a piece of rock has done the job.

"Harry!" he hears Remus yell, and Harry touches the man's sleeve, pressing the tooth into his hand.

"Keep that safe, would you?" Harry says tiredly. "I think I want to keep it." He breathes in, heavily, and he drops back on the ground, lying on the cool stone of the entrance hall: he's bloody and muddy, he's missing his tooth, and he can't move his right arm.

Other than that, he thinks to himself, the day could have gone worse. He laughs to himself, unable not to, and he lets his eyes close. Not the best place to sleep, really, but you can't take points of an unconscious student, can you?

101010101

"Here," Remus says quietly, and he puts a jar on the desk beside Harry's bed. Harry picks it up with his left arm, peering into the glass: in a pool of clear, thick liquid settles his tooth, perfectly suspended. "Madam Pomfrey couldn't put it back in."

"That figures," Harry mutters. "What does Harry Potter need a tooth for? He's got loads of them."

"Glad to see you're so light-hearted," Remus says, sitting slowly on the edge of Harry's infirmary bed, and Harry watches him for a few seconds, meeting the werewolf's gaze.

"Crying never got me much," Harry says. "I'm more of a grin and bear it sort of bloke. You want to see something cool?"

"Sure," Remus says, and Harry shifts slightly in bed, pulling the sheet away from his right arm. Remus gasps, looking horrified: Madam Pomfrey had easily healed the nasty cuts on Harry's face, but he'd missed a shard that had cut through side of his pyjamas on the left. The scar bites past Harry's chest, jagged and red on the skin. "She couldn't heal that?"

"She could have," Harry admits. "Asked her to let it scar." Remus lets out an obviously uncomfortable, forced laugh, reaching out and gently touching Harry's hair.

"Sirius will be here tomorrow," Remus says quietly. "What about the exertion damage?"

"It's not as bad as last time," Harry says, shrugging. Remus stares at him.

"Last time?" he repeats, and Harry nods his head.

"Yeah, I did this in first year, too." Harry looks up as the infirmary doors swing open, and Harry is disappointed when he sees Snape instead of Hermione. "Does that ten points Flitwick took off me earlier count?"

"Yes," Snape says firmly.

"They were extenuating circumstances," Harry argues.

"Shut up, Potter," Snape says, and Harry lets out a loud, exaggerated sigh, but at Snape's utterly serious expression,, he sobers slightly, sitting up. "The Auror force has just sent word to Professor Dumbledore. Azkaban is in ruins."

"What do you mean, in ruins?" Harry asks. "They can't have destroyed the whole thing - it's been there like, half a millennium." Snape gives a very small shakes of his head, and Harry goes silent. "What about the other prisoners? They got Lockhart and Arnett, right, but...?"

Snape and Remus go very, very quiet, and Harry glances between them.

"They've all escaped?"

"Some are dead. Thirty or so prisoners. A few were injured seriously enough to be left behind. The rest are gone." Harry is silent for a long, long while. Snape doesn't say anything more - he slips quietly out of the room, and Remus stays still, watching Harry as he thinks about the prisoners that had been in Azkaban. How many were murderers? How many were Death Eaters?

A fair few, Harry guesses. A lot.

101010101

Harry doesn't read the special on Azkaban's destruction in the Prophet. He specifically goes out of his way not to do so, simply because he knows he'll only find extra information about the escaped prisoners depressing and upsetting; he'll only feel more guilty and stupid for not having been able to somehow stop it sooner, and he'll only obsess over the names of the people now free.

It doesn't make any difference.

It's the talk of the school. Why wouldn't it be?

Wherever he walks in the halls, he hears someone discussing one prisoner or another. Some of the names he recognizes, and others he doesn't, but he learns the names as the next week or so goes by. Sightings of Bellatrix Lestrange are reported in Essex, and of Keating Travers in Durham - there are sightings of murderers and monsters all across Britain.

"It's not your fault," Hermione murmurs. Harry sighs, rubbing over his chin. "You couldn't have done anything different."

"Maybe," Harry says. "Maybe not. I can't believe she was able to just- Five people. Just five very dedicated, very crazy people, and they brought Azkaban to the ground." That particular explanation Harry has heard a hundred times over - they sent in Chad Arnett with a date in mind, so he could communicate to Lockhart to get himself safe, surrounded the place with Muggle explosives, and it was really that simple. It was that simple.

The idea makes Harry sick with anger. How could anyone rely on only dementors to keep a jail running? How could there not have been any human guards?

He glances to the side as Draco slides into the seat beside him, and Hermione and Harry both frown at him, silent for a few moments. "I don't want to sit at the Slytherin table today," Draco says, reaching for a jug of pumpkin juice. His hand shakes, and Hermione takes it off him, pouring his glass for him. Draco had had his curtains shut tightly around his bed, but Harry can see from the greying bags under Draco's eyes that he'd barely slept.

"Ask Snape if you can Floo your mum," Harry says quietly. Draco shakes his head, drinking from his glass, and Hermione frowns at them.

"What are you so worried about?" Hermione asks. She speaks in a very soft tone, but it's clearly audible - the whole school has been under a state of complete hush the past few days, with people quietly, constantly, discussing Azkaban, and nothing else.

"You know how I explained to you," Harry murmurs, "About how Drom Tonks is Sirius' cousin, and how Narcissa is too? But that Drom was disowned?"

"Yeah..."

"Bellatrix Lestrange is the third Black sister." Hermione pours Draco a little more pumpkin juice, pushing a little buttered toast his way, but Draco just drinks, avoiding even looking at the food on the table. Harry reaches out, very gently patting Draco's back, and the other boy doesn't lean away or complain, like he usually would. "If you don't Floo her, I will."

"He's going today," Draco says quietly. "To see Father. She'll want him dead. She'll want so many people dead."

"Me included," Harry agrees. Draco's laugh is hoarse, and awkward, and it makes Harry flinch slightly. "They'll be fine. Don't worry."

"I'm not," Draco lies.

"Good," Harry lies back. "Nor am I." Harry shoves a piece of toast into Draco's hand, forcing him to take a small bite, and he meets Hermione's concerned gaze. He's never felt as out of depth as he does this week, and he can't help but wonder if she feels the same.


	57. Year Three: Some Finalities

"Can I ask you a question?"

"I'd rather you did not," Snape replies, but he looks up from his book, looking Harry in the face.

"She didn't use dementors. She used people," Harry says. He's been staring at ancient, dusty book pages for most of the day, and he still doesn't understand it.

"Padraic and Darla Fenton were the leading experts on Muggle warfare and explosives this side of the Pacific," Snape says simply, marking his page and setting the book aside. He speaks seriously, quietly, and then adds, "In using their bodies, they were killing two birds with one stone. They took two of the only people who might comment on the use of Muggle explosives in magical areas out of the equation whilst using ideal channels."

"But they weren't dementors," Harry says. "They were people. You said they had to be the same species."

"Sara Dean-Smith has studied traditional magic for the past sixty years, Potter. Evidently, she was capable of tweaking necessary requirements in ritual magic." Snape slides his book over the desk, leaning back in his seat. Harry, for the first time, doesn't want to be at Hogwarts right now. He wants to be in his room in Sirius' flat, under the covers of his bed with just books and books around him. Whenever he looks out of a window he thinks about the dementors, or the corpses of the Fentons stumbling over the grass, bloody and open to the bone.

"What do you think they're going to do, now he's out? Lockhart, and his little fanclub? Lockhart just wants attention, but they've just killed like forty people to get him out. What are they going to do?"

"I don't know, Potter."

"What about the dementors? Now there's no prisoners in Azkaban, so what are they going to do with them?"

"I don't know, Potter."

"Do you think Voldemort's going to come back?" Harry asks, feeling a sick lurch in his belly as he asks the question. "The Death Eaters, they've all escaped. Do you think they'll bring him back?"

"I don't know, Potter," Snape says, for the third time, in the same simple, neutral tone, and Harry can't stand it, can't stand the fact that the man isn't even offering theories as to what the Hell is going to happen.

"How can you not know?" Harry demands, and then he feels stupid, crossing his arms over his chest and looking away.

"Contrary to your evident belief, Potter, I do not know everything." Snape stands up, plucking the book from his desk and settling it on a shelf. He looks down at Harry, and then says, "Go to bed."

"Why? Will it make me feel better?" Harry asks sardonically.

"Probably not," Snape allows. "But it will make me feel better, as you will be elsewhere."

"You're a terrible mentor." Harry makes his way to the door nonetheless, stepping out into the corridor. Maybe going to sleep for a bit will make him feel better. He can only hope.

"Good," Snape retorts, and slams the door shut behind him.

* * *

"Excuse me, Professor McGonagall," Harry turns, staring with wide, surprised eyes at his godfather. He stands in the doorway of the Transfiguration classroom, expression serious. "Can I borrow my godson and Draco, please? They've been called up to the headmaster's office." Harry looks to McGonagall, who seems surprised, but not really annoyed.

"Off you go, Mr Potter, Mr Malfoy. Take your satchels with you - there's only twenty minutes left to the period." Harry and Draco exchange looks, and Harry's glad to see the other boy looking as uncertain as he is, but they both shoulder their bags and follow Sirius out into the corridor. He doesn't talk as he leads them down to the entrance of Dumbledore's office, and he hurries them up the stairs after telling the gargoyle, "Liquorice bootlaces."

As soon as they cross the threshold, Draco lets out a horrified sound, running across the room and throwing his arms around his mother.

Harry hovers in the doorway, looking between the pale-faced Malfoy couple. Narcissa has a black eye, her hair singed heavily in places, and the skirt of her robes is torn to the calf, revealing harsh grazes over the skin there. Lucius looks even worse, though - blood soaks brightly into the silver-blond of his hair, and Snape is bending over him, carefully drawing his wand over the cut in his scalp to heal it closed. The front of Lucius' robes are shredded, claw marks digging into the chest, and under the green fabric his chest is a mess of red and white.

"Mother, Father-"

"It's alright, Draco," Narcissa whispers, holding him tightly. "We're quite fine. Quite alright." Lucius reaches out, and Draco takes his father's hand, squeezing it tightly under his own.

"That's healed closed," Snape murmurs quietly. "You can do your chest yourself?"

"Of course," Lucius says. "Don't insult me, Severus - I taught you that spell." Snape lets out a low, amused sound, and he turns to Narcissa, drawing a canister of balm from inside his robes and beginning to carefully apply it to her bruised left eye.

Harry feels Sirius standing beside him, and he looks to the man. His godfather looks exceedingly serious, but he gives Harry a small, encouraging smile, pushing him into the room. Dumbledore stands before his desk, watching the Malfoys seriously as Lucius heals the cuts on his chest and Narcissa does her best not to wince as Snape fixes up her eye.

"What happened?" Harry asks quietly, dropping his bag on the ground.

"Malfoy Manor was attacked by escapees this morning," Dumbledore says in a very sombre tone. "Bearing stolen wands, they attacked the ward structure and brought it down.

"Stupid of me," Lucius mutters. His eyes are wide, and he's breathing slightly heavily as he returns his wand to its hidden place sheathed in his cane. Harry's never seen the man look so tortured. "Of course that bitch recalled the position of the ward stones. I-"

"Lucius," Narcissa reproaches, and he seems to remember himself slightly, gritting his teeth.

"The Lestranges each knew the position of the ward stones," Lucius says. "As well as to bring them down. The wards at Hogwarts are imbued into everything, but mine were merely strengthened by a few central pieces of infrastructure - perfectly usable structure, so long as one doesn't know the weak points."

"Why did they attack Malfoy Manor?" Lucius drums his fingers on the chair he's sat heavily in, and it's Narcissa who answers.

"It was requested that we offer Bellatrix and the others sanctuary," she says. "That they might have safe headquarters whilst they search for the Dark Lord. I refused."

"And dear Bella needed no more invitation to turn on her own sister?" Sirius asks, bitterly. Narcissa purses her lips tightly together, saying nothing more at all. "I don't understand why I'm here, nor Harry," he adds, frowning at Dumbledore, and Dumbledore offers a very small smile.

"It is my suggestion, Sirius, and my request, that you offer Mr and Mrs Malfoy sanctuary in the Black home, in Grimmauld Place." Sirius laughs.

"Why? The place is a hellhole." Lucius stares at Dumbledore.

"There is no need," he says cleanly. "With due thanks," Lucius says the word with all the acidity he can back into it. "We will travel to France. There is an unused cottage of my family's in Marseille." Narcissa nods her head, seriously.

"Oh?" Dumbledore asks, and he gives a quiet, thoughtful sound before looking between the Malfoys again. "And who will cast the Fidelius Charm for you, once you are there?" Lucius' lips part, and he goes utterly slack-jawed. Harry watches Snape, who furrows his brow at Dumbledore, obviously confused at the implied offer.

"The Fidelius Charm?" Narcissa repeats, her gaze utterly concentrated on Dumbledore's face. "Were we to stay, you would cast it for us?" It must be complicated magic, Harry thinks - Harry's not been able to read many books that talk about it in detail, but Dumbledore seems to be one of the only people who can cast it.

"What is that?" Draco asks hurriedly. "The Fidelius Charm?"

"It conceals a secret," Harry answers. "Like an address. You know how my parents lived in Godric's Hollow, with me? They were hidden under a Fidelius Charm - that's how Pettigrew betrayed them, by telling Voldemort-" All three Malfoys flinch. "where they were." Draco gives a small nod of his head, and looks to Dumbledore with everyone else.

"Were you to assist our effort against the Death Eaters, Mr Malfoy, I would be glad to protect you in any way possible." Harry peers up at Dumbledore - on the one hand, he's irritated that Dumbledore would force the Malfoys' hand like this, but on the other... It's an extraordinarily canny way to get the Malfoys onto his side, however unwillingly. Lucius and Narcissa exchange a serious look: the conversation they share with only their eyes seems to go on for ages, and then they nod together.

"Very well," Lucius says sharply. "Draco- he'll be safer here. He'll still come here." Draco swallows, giving a small nod of his head when his father meets his gaze.

"Very good," Dumbledore says cheerfully. "We need only select a Secret Keeper."

"Severus-"

"No," Snape says. Lucius sighs in a dramatic fashion, and Snape rolls his eyes.

"I'll do it," Narcissa says quietly. Dumbledore's smile unsettles Harry a little - it's kind and warm, but Harry's just seen the way he pushed the Malfoys around like chess pieces, and it's... Bizarre. Strangely, Harry feels a little more respect for the headmaster than he had before, but by no means does it make him feel more affection.

"Come then," Dumbledore says. "Let us begin."

* * *

"Oh, it's nothing that bad," Harry assures Theo as he and Draco walk down to Care of Magical Creatures with him. "The Malfoys are coming to stay with me and Sirius in the summer, that's all." He speaks as casually as he can, and Draco gives a nod of his head. "Should be fun." Theo opens his mouth to say something, but he's distracted as Harry hurries a little further down the hill, waving to Hermione.

Hagrid stands at the edge of the paddock beside his hut, awkwardly holding his hands in front of his chest. Fang sits on Hagrid's doorstep, surveying the scene, and Harry really, really hopes that this is going to go alright. He loves Hagrid, of course he does, but the man can be...

Well. Harry just hopes there aren't any baby dragons waiting for them in the paddock.

"Alrigh', settle down now, settle down," Hagrid says, gesturing for the students to gather around. Harry stands with Theodore, watching Hagrid carefully as he offers them a big, wide smile. It's blatantly obvious that the man is nervous, but he forces himself to say, "Now, thought we'd start off with a nice, practical lesson. In the paddock here, we've got some Hippogriffs."

Harry stares as the little herd makes its way closer, their bright eyes peering with obvious interest at the students: they're beautiful animals, with their soft hair and feathers, but they're very, very big.

* * *

"Oh, hey, Buckbeak," Harry says, and he gives a little laugh as the Hippogriff gives him a little headbutt. He reaches behind the bizarre animal's ear, scratching gently underneath the feathers there and smiling. Buckbeak is an intimidating animal, but he's not a cruel one, and Harry finds he rather likes Hippogriffs once he's assured they're not going to rip out his throat.

He looks around the paddock at the other students. Lavender Brown and Parvati Patil are cooing over a Hippogriff that's a little smaller than the others, assuring him of how pretty he is and how lovely his eyes are - the Hippogriff seems to be basking under the attention. Hermione is talking awkwardly to a silver-brown Hippogriff, obviously not all that great with animals any bigger than Crookshanks, and Harry watches as Draco makes his way over to her.

He's got that irritating swagger to his movements, and Harry says to Buckbeak, "Watch this. This'll be good." Buckbeak tilts his head, and looks in the direction Harry nods his head.

Harry can't see what Draco says as he puts his hands on his hips, as he's facing away from Harry, but it makes Hermione roll her eyes and say something back Harry thinks is "Go away, Draco." He really needs to learn to lipread. Draco tosses his head, gesturing to the Hippogriff and presumably saying something: the Hippogriff's head whips towards Draco, and Harry's eyes widen.

It lunges towards Draco, and Hermione pulls him out of the way, tumbling onto the ground with him. Harry pats Buckbeak on the side of his shoulder, running towards them.

"Whoa, whoa, hey there," Harry says, catching the Hippogriff Hermione had been petting before it can grab Draco by the calf. "Ignore him, whatever he said, he's an idiot. Look, you're so handsome, he obviously doesn't compare." The Hippogriff seems to consider this, peering into Harry's face as he does his best not to look directly into its eyes, and then it lets out a warbling coo, batting him with its wing.

Hermione drags Draco off the ground and then lets him go, shaking the dust off her robes: Draco is stockstill, though, and he's looking at Hermione with a slightly faraway expression in his eyes. It only lasts for a few seconds, and then Draco shakes himself off, looking to Crabbe and Goyle and doing his best to show off his bravado, but Harry had seen it. "Oh, God," Harry mutters, patting the Hippogriff's head.

* * *

"Don't," Hermione says firmly.

"Don't what?"

"Don't- don't point it out." Hermione gives a shake of her head, sitting herself down on the grass, and Harry drops down next to her, looking out over the lake. The giant squid is making lazy circles of it, its tentacles just brushing the surface before disappearing under the water again, and the slow movements are hypnotizing. "I'm not going to pay him any attention."

"He's paying enough attention for the both of you," Harry says dryly, and she elbows him hard in the side. "You could always give him a go."

"Give him a go?" Hermione repeats, utterly horrified.

"I meant- I don't know, try him! Hang out with him!" Harry says hurriedly, amending his phrasing, and she huffs.

"No. Draco Malfoy could fall to his knees at my feet and I wouldn't so much as kiss his cheek." Harry snorts, watching as the squid does a strange twirl in the lake water. "You've only just noticed it. George was making jokes about it when he sent me letters last summer." Harry glances at her, making the connections in his head.

"Is that why you were in such a mood with him in Diagon Alley? Because he told you Draco had a crush on you?" Harry laughs, and Hermione crosses her arms over her chest, pursing her lips together in a tight moue of displeasure. "You want me to talk to him?"

"No," Hermione says. "He'll grow out of it." Harry's not really seen Draco show any interest in girls before - unlike Theo and Blaise, he never seems to make all that much fuss of the posters on their walls, or join in the conversations about pretty girls in the years above. Nonetheless, Hermione's probably right - Draco preens under Pansy's attention, but he always gets bored of her soon enough.

"Or you'll grow into it, I suppose."

"Harry James Potter, I will throw you to that squid right now." Harry grins at her, throwing his arm around her shoulders. "I mean it, Harry. Just- just leave it."

"I will, Hermione, I will," Harry promises. She half hugs him, and they sit there for a little while, watching the squid. "Ah, my little Hermione. All grown up and rejecting the menfolk." Hermione snorts.

"You can't really call me little, Harry. I'm two inches taller than you." Harry lets her go, standing up and shouldering his bag.

"Friendship revoked!"

"Harry!" Hermione says, laughing as Harry mock-stalks up the hill, and she follows him up to lunch soon enough.

* * *

Harry holds his copy of the Prophet in one hand, scanning the headline; in his other, he keeps Hedwig off the ground, carrying her cage carefully through the crowd before settling down on a bench. Hogsmeade Station is in utter chaos with people running back and forth, having forgotten things up at the castle or whatever, and Harry is going to do his best to just ignore it until he can board the train.

 _Aurors clashed once again with Gringotts goblins this week. The Gringotts policy continues to refuse entry to law enforcement wishing to arrest Azkaban escapees within the bank's walls; Gringotts has refuted three times now the validity of Ministry warrants within their walls. Sighted this week alone within the bank have been Bellatrix Lestrange, Gilderoy Lockhart and Alecto Carrow, all of which escaped from Azkaban last April._

 _Nymphadora Tonks, one Auror involved, said..._

"Hey, Harry," Hermione says, setting Crookshanks' basket down beside Hedwig's cage, and Harry gives her a small smile of greeting, handing her the paper. Despite the chaos continuing outside of the castle's walls, within Hogwarts things had progressed much as usual, and Harry is more than satisfied with his performance at the end of year exams.

"Oh, for goodness' sake," she mutters, frowning at the paper. "Is money really that important to them?"

"Lindon was writing me the other day - he said it isn't about the money," Harry says, giving a shrug. "Something about drama with the Goblin Liaison Office? Goblins are treated as second-class citizens, so ignoring wizarding law in this case is a form of protest." Hermione shakes her head, passing the paper back to him.

"Seems a bit extreme when Bellatrix Lestrange is involved," she murmurs, and they both look up as the Hogwarts Express lets out a sound of its whistle. Students begin boarding, and Harry shoves his Prophet under his arm, standing up. "Did Sirius-"

"Harry!" comes a yell from up the hill, and Harry glances up as Percy Weasley rushes down towards him with a letter held in his hand and Hermes flapping urgently after him. Harry frowns, opening his mouth to ask a question, but Percy's already on him - the older boy throws his arms around Harry, pressing a kiss to his forehead and letting out a loud laugh. "I got the job, Harry!" Percy declares excitedly: his freckled cheeks are bright red from exertion and excitement, and he ruffles Harry's hair. "I'm the new assistant for Bartemius Crouch! Can you believe it!?"

"Of course I can," Harry says awkwardly, trying not to think about how good Percy smells - he must use some sort of cologne, but Harry shouldn't ask about that right now. "Well done!" Percy grins at the both of them, and then he lets Hermes alight on his shoulder, stepping onto the train.

Harry sighs.

"You're such an idiot," Hermione says, picking Crookshanks up, and Harry frowns at her, letting her step onto the train before him. "What I was going to say, was did Sirius say anything more about staying with you this summer?"

"Yeah," Harry says, walking with her until they find an empty compartment and slipping inside. They let Crookshanks and Hedwig out as soon as the door is closed, and Crookshanks leaps up to a luggage rack, curling in a ball beside it. Within a few moments, Hermione and Harry's trunks appear with house elves carrying them, and they both chorus "Thank you!"s before they disappear. "He said so long as your parents are alright with him he'd like you to come and stay." He lifts up Hermione's trunk, carefully setting it beside Crookshanks without disturbing him. "We're all staying at Grimmauld Place together - apparently Dumbledore is setting up some kind of group there."

"What do you mean, group?" Hermione asks, frowning and furrowing her brow. "I thought the Malfoys were just going to stay there?"

"Yeah, I think they thought that too," Harry says, sitting against the window and stroking Hedwig's feathers. "Sirius couldn't go into too much detail, but it's some kind of light wizard group."

"I bet the Malfoys are pleased about that," Hermione says dryly.

"I think they're willing to deal with it at the moment, to be honest," Harry murmurs, and Hermione's expression falters a little. She's not going to be sympathetic, of course, but nor can she really be completely hostile where the Malfoys are concerned, even though Harry has seen her try. "You excited for the summer?"

"Oh, yeah," Hermione says. "Stuck in a big house with you, the Malfoys, the Weasleys, and Sirius Black. It's my dream, Harry." Harry laughs, feeling the chug of the train beneath them as it leaves the station.

"Yeah, Hermione. Mine too."


	58. Year Four: Grimmauld Place

"Just sign here, here and here." Harry grins as he watches Petunia bend over the contract and draw the quill awkwardly over the page. She obviously struggles with it, a scowl twisting her features; Vernon has already signed it, and with the final flourish of Petunia's ugly, pinched little signature, Harry's freedom is official. Sirius Black is now Harry Potter's completely legal guardian, from now 'til Harry's of age.

Dudley is watching from the side of the kitchen, his arms crossed over his chest and his expression sour: Sirius and Harry are dressed casually, in jeans and t-shirts, but Sirius' Azkaban tattoo is obvious on his neck, and more ink is obvious on his bare arms. Sirius is a true affront to the normalcy of Little Whinging with his long, dark hair and his scuffed, ripped jeans, and Harry has never been prouder to stand beside his godfather in his life.

"Done, then," Petunia says, huffing out a little noise, and Harry beams at her.

"So glad," he says, and he rolls up the piece of parchment, handing it over to Sirius. Sirius' expression isn't as plainly joyful as Harry's own is. He's irritated, and he regards all three Dursleys with a mildly hostile displeasure. "Let's go, Sirius."

"Is that the cupboard they kept you in?" Sirius asks, nodding back into the hall. Harry glances to the white-painted cupboard door, and then he meets his godfather's gaze again. "It's tiny."

"Yeah, I know," Harry says. "Let's go." Sirius breathes in, nostrils flaring, and he turns to stare at Petunia, leaning right towards her. Petunia stands her ground, holding her horsey neck straight and looking right into Sirius' face; Harry can see that Vernon's getting angry, and he can't be bothered with his relatives today. "Sirius," Harry says sharply. "They're bad people, they treated me badly, and now they won't. That's it. Let's go."

"Bad people!" Vernon spits out, reddening. "Took you in, out of the goodness of our hearts-" Sirius looks ready to pull out his wand at any moment, and Harry's uncle looks ready to come to blows, so Harry steps in.

"Shut up, Vernon," Harry says loudly, and the man is shocked into silence, his furious face turning a swift, ruddy plum-red. "We're going." He grabs Sirius by the arm, pulling him into the hall and then outside. Sirius keeps clenching and unclenching his fists, twitching irritably, but despite his plain fury Harry feels he's holding in his anger quite well. "Calm down."

"How can I be calm?" Sirius asks. "Those- those people-"

"What do you want to do, Sirius? Kill them? Hurt them? Send them to Azkaban?" Sirius lets out a sharp noise of frustration as he walks with Harry down Magnolia Crescent, and Harry shakes his head. "There's no point. Let's just go home."

"Harry!" comes a voice in front of them, and Harry stops short, offering the old lady an awkward, polite smile.

"Er, hi, Mrs Figg. You alright?"

"Oh, yes, enjoying the sunshine... Leaving for the summer then, are you? Don't suppose I'll see you back here, now that Sirius is out of prison?" Harry blinks at her, opening and closing his mouth. Mrs Figg is beaming at him, and Harry isn't quite sure what to say, or what to do.

"Er, no, Ma'am. We're heading back to London now. And then, obviously, back to school in September," he speaks slowly, narrowing his eyes slightly, and Sirius looks between the two of them, obviously perplexed.

"And what house are you in?" Mrs Figg asks in a bright, polite tone, tilting her head slightly and watching him carefully. "My brothers were both in Ravenclaw." Harry pauses for a few seconds before he replies.

"Slytherin, Mrs Figg," he answers. "And proud of it."

"Strange," she says lightly. "Always thought you'd be a Gryffindor. Ah, well. Have a good summer, Harry!" Mrs Figg totters off, dragging her trolley-bag behind her, and Harry watches her go, utterly thrown by the interaction.

"Who was that?" Sirius asks, and Harry considers the question as they dip under the traffic bridge to Apparate.

"Well," Harry says. "I'm not entirely sure I know."

* * *

Grimmauld Place is in chaos when Sirius and Harry arrive. Three house elves squeak in horror and disappear from sight as Sirius and Harry cross the threshold, and when they enter the dining room, it seems like everyone's home: Lucius and Mrs Weasley are in the midst of an argument, him holding a bottle of black poison and her shaking a bottle of Doxycide; over the table, Fred and Ginny are playing a fast-paced game of Exploding Snap against Draco and George, and in the corner of the room Hermione looks ready to slap Ron upside the head with her book.

"Just another day in paradise," Sirius says brightly, surveying the havoc with a smile on his face, and Harry shakes his head, making his way forwards. He takes the bottle of poison out of Lucius' hand, setting it on the table.

"Use the Doxycide," he says, looking right up into Lucius' affronted expression. "The cats and the owls in this house like to play with the Doxies, Lucius. Do you want to clean Hermione's cat off the stairwell?" Lucius blinks at him, and then he scowls, looking at Mrs Weasley.

"You can take care of them, then," he says in a biting tone.

"Happy to!" Mrs Weasley retorts, and she hurries out of the room and up the stairs. Harry winces as he hears Mrs Black's portrait start to scream at her, and he sighs, walking past Lucius and into the kitchen.

Sitting against the counter and silently sipping at a mug of steaming, green tea, Narcissa arches an eyebrow in greeting. "It reminds me of my youth," she says, looking into the middle distance over her drink. "So many people in one house who alll... Clash."

"No offence," Harry says, reaching into a cupboard and pulling out a can of pop, "But I didn't realize it was going to turn into battle of the housewives."

Letting out a dry, tired laugh, Narcissa says, "No, Harry, nor did I." Harry flicks the tab on the drink, stepping back into the dining hall: Lucius is setting various silver crockery on display in a glass cabinet. Beside him, Sirius shakes his head, as if Lucius should be just throwing goblin-made silver out of the windows.

Narcissa and Lucius had settled in Grimmauld Place last year, and by the time Dumbledore had decided the house should act as a headquarters for the Order of the Phoenix, they'd carved out enough of the house to have a bedroom for themselves, and another for Draco. Unfortunately, the vast majority of the house is extremely hostile, wrought with Boggarts, disturbingly large Puffeskeins, Doxies, and various other household pets. Even with the Malfoys and their three house elves working on the house, with the added help of Mrs Weasley, they're making slow progress.

Especially given that Lucius refuses to throw even the bloodiest of furniture out, lest they be losing some family heirloom.

"Is Bill here yet?" Harry ask, patting Sirius' shoulder to get his attention, and Sirius shakes his head.

"He's coming in this afternoon," he answers, and Lucius glances back.

"Which one is that?"

"The cursebreaker with the long hair," Harry supplies. Lucius' face is momentarily blank, and then he gives a nod of his head. "Do you want me to do anything?"

"Go help Molly," Lucius advises, and Harry raises an eyebrow, glancing at Sirius.

"Apparently, it's too difficult to keep track of each other if they lose last names, so they're on first name terms for the sake of efficiency," Sirius explains, and Harry sniggers, heading out into the hall.

"Mrs Black, please," Harry says. "Can't you calm down?"

"TRAITORS!" she screeches loudly. "MUDBLOODS, BLOOD TRAITORS, SCUM!"

"Silencio!" Hermione says, sweeping her wand forwards, but it makes no difference - it doesn't even lower the portrait's immense volume, and Harry shakes his head, gesturing for Hermione to follow him up the stairs. "Surely something will work. Has anyone tried Langlock?" Harry stops, thoughtful.

"No, actually," he says, leaning over the bannister with his can in hand. "Try it."

"Langlock!" Hermione casts, and Ms Black lets out a loud, choking sound, coughing. Hermione and Harry share a grin, and they make their way up the stairs and into the room with the armoire Mrs Weasley is currently de-doxying. She sprays them heavily, dropping three of them in a big, black bucket, and Harry grabs at a fourth, dropping it inside too.

"You oughtn't be using magic, you know, Hermione, dear," Molly says worriedly as she passes Hermione the bottle of doxycide and letting her take over.

"We're under the Fidelius Charm, Mrs Weasley," Harry says, putting his arm over his mouth and casting a mumbled Incendio as the doxy nest in the bottom of the armoire. Hermione the doxycide as the nest burns itself up, and Harry sets his can aside, helping her pick up the last of the doxies. "The Trace isn't going to work."

"You know very well that that isn't the point," she says sternly. "It's dangerous."

"We're not doing anything complicated, Mrs Weasley, or doing any new magic," Hermione assures her. "We'll only use the spells we already know the entire summer, I promise."

When Mrs Weasley bends over to Vanish the ashes in the wardrobe, Harry looks at Hermione and mouths, "Liar." Hermione puts her finger over her lips, grabbing at his can of cola and taking a sip. "Oi! I had to herd Draco and Ron around Tesco for an hour to get hold of that!" Hermione laughs, passing it back. "Just because your parents can't stop you..."

"Why would her parents stop her?" Mrs Weasley asks.

"There's a lot of sugar in it," Hermione explains. "It rots your teeth if you drink too much too often." Mrs Weasley gives the can a casual glance.

"Bit like an Acid Pop, then," she says uncaringly, and she picks up her bucket of frozen doxies and carries them down the stairs. Harry and Hermione push the armoire back against the wall, and Harry grabs some polish and a rag to start working on it. The armoire is made of teak but painted in varnished black, and now that it's not full of biting fairies, it's not so bad to look at.

They settle into conversation as they work on the armoire, bringing the varnished wood back to its usual shine.

"How did the Dursleys go?" Hermione asks.

"Perfectly," Harry says. "Though I think my old babysitter might have been a witch. How was this morning?"

"Ron wants us to come to the World Cup," Hermione answers, and Harry groans. Much as Harry loves Quidditch, he'd been put off at the idea of attending the World Cup this summer - there are going to be a ridiculous number of people, and with both Death Eaters and Lockhart's crew of idiots doing their best to wreak havoc across the country, he doesn't want to be in a tent when he can be here. "Given that it's the Weasley lads and Ginny, and then Sirius, Draco and Mr Malfoy, he wants us to come to bridge the gap."

"Bridge the gap?" Harry repeats.

"I know," Hermione says, shaking her head. "Sirius will pretend to be protecting the Malfoys the whole time as he enjoys himself, and the Weasleys can just continue as normal. I think he just wants someone to buddy up with - Ginny and the twins tend to stay together, and you know that Draco will stay with his father the whole time." Harry sighs.

"Suppose we could send Kreacher." Hermione frowns at him.

"Don't be nasty, Harry. It's not Kreacher's fault he's- you know. The way he is."

"I could say the same about Draco, Hermione." Hermione groans, and Harry laughs to himself. "But-"

"Kreacher is to alert the Mudblood and the blood traitor that they are wanted in the dining room," creaks an old voice from the doorway, and Harry turns to look at him. Kreacher stares at the both of them with his huge, watery eyes and his utterly hateful expression.

"What have I told you about using that word, Kreacher? Get out of my sight!" Harry snaps, and Kreacher disappears with a quiet pop. "You still feel sorry for him, Hermione?"

"Uh, yes, Harry," Hermione says, dropping the rag aside and following him down the stairs. "He's still a slave." Harry sighs.

"If I could free him without him going off to die, Hermione, I would." Harry raises his eyebrows as they step into Grimmauld Place's dining room. The table is all set, but none of the food looks like Mrs Weasley's - there are numerous small plates layered over the table, containing everything from pastries to soups to chips. Harry and Hermione stare mutely, taking seats across from each other, and the Weasleys children do much the same when they re-enter the room.

"Bloody hell," Ron says. "Did you do this, Mum?"

"I did, actually." Lucius's hair is neatly tied behind his back, and his sleeves are rolled up to the elbow - Harry doesn't miss the bandage tied over his left arm, hiding the Dark Mark there. "I do hope that won't be an issue, Mr Weasley?"

Sirius drops himself into a seat next to Harry, reaching for a small, square pie. "Eat this," he advises. "It's good." Narcissa and Lucius join them at the table, Draco sitting across from his mother, and when Mrs Weasley joins them Harry can tell she's trying hard not to show her enjoyment.

"Did you learn to cook at one of your restaurants, Lucius?" Harry asks, and the older man nods his head, wiping his mouth delicately.

"My grandmother taught me, for the most part, and then my uncles. Goodness knows Narcissa could do with similar tutelage."

"I can cook perfectly well, thank you, Lucius."

"Have you or have you not, my darling, previously managed to set bacon alight?" Harry laughs, and Narcissa tosses her hair.

"At least I, dearheart, have never injured myself with my own Conjunctivitus Jinx." Harry and Draco settle into conversation with them, asking questions about one thing or another - it doesn't take long for Fred, George and Hermione to join in, but Harry can see the other Weasleys are a little unsure how to react.

"Don't you think it's a little bit weird?" Ron asks in a whisper to Harry as they walk up the stairs together. "They keep acting- you know. Normal."

"What did you think they were going to be like?" Harry asks, pushing open the door to his bedroom and stepping inside, inviting Ron to sit down in his armchair. For the summer, Sirius had moved Harry's furniture over to Grimmauld Place, doing the same with his own bedroom, and Harry is glad to have his own room.

"I dunno," Ron says with a shrug, kicking the door closed. "They're just so- they're horrible people, right? They're just so smarmy. But they just tease and that, like- like-"

"Like they're human beings?" Harry asks, and Ron lets out a frustrated noise, sprawling in Harry's chair. "They're trying quite hard to be nice, honestly. They're even on first name terms with your parents."

"That just makes it worse," Ron says, shaking his head. "And then Malfoy- why does he get his own room?"

"Because Death Eaters stole his home," Harry answers simply, and Ron goes slightly red, shifting in his seat. He looks uncomfortable enough staying here without thinking about the Malfoys - the Weasleys are in Grimmauld Place for the summer while Dumbledore strengthens the wards around the Burrow and makes sure it's safe - so Harry says, "Why don't we play a game of chess?"

"You're crap at chess, Harry," Ron points out.

"I can practise," Harry says, and he grabs his board from the shelf. "You looking forward to the Cup?"

"Yeah, definitely. You sure you're not going to come?"

"Nah," Harry says, shaking his head. "Maybe next time." Harry is just about to move his pawn when there's a loud crash from downstairs, and Harry drops the game, throwing open his bedroom door.

At the top of the staircase, though, he skids to a stop, and he grins. "Hey!" he yells brightly, and runs excitedly down the stairs to greet Grimmauld Place's new visitors.


	59. Year Four: The Order Of The Phoenix

"Hello, Harry," Lindon says as Harry runs down the stairs to meet him, and he shakes Harry's hand. Cecilia isn't nearly so formal - she pulls Harry into a hug of greeting, and she shoots him a little grin as she pats his shoulder. Cecilia is wearing red jeans and a low-cut blouse Harry can't quite tear his gaze from, though Lindon is in a usual set of deep blue robes, and behind them stands a long-haired, tall man that must be Bill Weasley.

Bill Weasley has a broad, square jaw and the same bright, blue eyes as the rest of the Weasley clan. There's a light, gingery stubble over his chin and his cheeks, and the rest of his hair is drawn into a ponytail behind his head, and he wears a loop through one ear with what looks like a wolf fang hanging from it: his shoulders are broad but he's thin and his waist is small, and his tight shirt and trousers accentuate the fact. Harry looks him from his handsome face to his dragonhide boots, and then he goes silent for a few seconds, staring up at him.

Bill's easy smile falters slightly, and then he puts out his hand for Harry to shake it.

Harry feels the callouses of Bill's hand under his own, and he swallows hard before saying awkwardly, "You're, uh, you're tall." He coughs, letting Bill's hand go. "Tall."

"Come in, Celia," Sirius says, poking his head in from the dining room, and Celia and Bill follow him into the next room. Lindon lingers for a second as Hermione follows them out of sight, and then he gently pats Harry's upper back, leaning in closer.

"If he were available to the likes of us, Harry, I'd have already had him." Lindon pats Harry's head, and Harry lets out a sigh as he follows the historian into the next room, doing his best not to look too disappointed. Maybe Harry's a bit too young for Bill, anyway - for now, at least. Cecilia immediately begins talking urgently with Bill, spreading out a set of complex looking diagrams on the table: Lindon stands beside her, pointing out certain parts and explaining them in complex, numerical terms Harry mostly doesn't understand.

Within the next few minutes more people begin to arrive - Dora Tonks manages to trip over the threshold into the dining hall, falling into the arms of Celia, who easily pulls her up again; Kingsley Shacklebolt steps in with a horribly disfigured man limping by his side; Remus walks in followed soon after by Snape; Dedalus Diggle all but propels himself into the room with a beam on his face; Percy Weasley, to his obvious distaste, is accompanied inside by a filthy man who introduces himself as Mundungus Fletcher. As more people enter the room, Ron, Ginny and the Weasley twins are ushered out of the room, followed soon after by Draco - Harry refuses to leave, and when Mrs Weasley tries to push the issue, Sirius stands between him and Hermione and insists they'll stay if they want to.

Harry's grateful for it, though he feels more than out of place as they all begin to sit down at the long dining table. Harry sits beside Lucius with Hermione on his other side: across from them, the disfigured man is staring at Harry with a focus heavily assisted by his artificial eye. "Can I help you?" Harry asks after a few minutes, and the man lets out a hoarse, ugly little laugh.

"Got your dad's cheek, haven't you, Potter?" The man laughs a little more, and then suddenly turns serious. "I'm Alastor Moody."

"Mad-Eye Moody," Lucius supplies from Harry's left, and the ex-Auror slams his broad, scarred hand on the table, glaring at Lucius with a scowl on his face. "Oh, do forgive me, Alastor. Am I not permitted to speak?" Mad-Eye goes for his wand, but behind him Remus grabs his wrist, stopping him short. Lucius' lip is twitching into a smirk, and Harry glances at Hermione for help.

He recognizes the name of Mad-Eye Moody, of course - he'd been utterly notorious during the First War, and there'd been a whole chapter on his defensive methods in Celia's book about the Dark Arts, but he hadn't really been prepared for the man's odd demeanour. He constantly glares between the Malfoys and Snape, and Harry receives a not dissimilar stare every now and then. He doesn't seem capable of holding a smile for more than about four seconds at a time, and constantly has a scowl on his ugly face.

Remus points out the other strangers to Harry - Mundungus Fletcher is something of a career criminal, Hestia Jones and Sturgis Podmore are both accountants, and Emmeline Vance is apparently an Auror. The room becomes more and more crowded, and the sound of their chatter becomes louder as Harry and Hermione keep silent, looking around the room with interest.

Lindon is in deep conversation with Sturgis Podmore, leaning a little closer to the man than is really proper, and Harry's a little distracted by it until the door to the dining hall closes with a strangely loud click of sound. Harry looks to Dumbledore as he enters the room, flanked by Arthur Weasley. Arthur quickly runs to sit down next to Molly at the other side of the room, and Dumbledore stands silently at the end of the table, his blue eyes scanning the room.

They settle on Harry before they narrow slightly, and Harry offers him the most winning smile he can manage. Hermione does the same beside him, obvious hopeful, but he doesn't ask them to leave. In fact, their presence seems to amuse the old man somehow, because he gives a tiny nod of his head before he finishes looking around the table.

"You have each been gathered here," Dumbledore says quietly as he sets his hands absently on the end of the long table, "to become members - or, indeed, to renew your membership - of an old order. The Order of the Phoenix is a society that was originally founded during the First War, in order to fight Lord Voldemort and his followers. With Azkaban destroyed, we can expect him to soon return: we require the Order once more."

"Is that why we're including enemies in our little gatherings, now?" Moody demands with a flick of his thumb at Lucius. Despite everyone staring at him, the man is unflinching, and Narcissa's expression remains equally blank. Harry glances to Snape, who looks to be bored with the evening's proceedings, and then back to Narcissa as she starts to talk.

"By all means, Mr Moody," Narcissa says archly, "Refuse the assistance we're forced to give you if you please - we hardly wish to be involved." Moody and Lucius both open their mouths to join the conversation at the same time, but Dumbledore lightly taps on the table with his knuckles to interrupt them. The quiet sound seems to ring in the full dining room.

"Mr and Mrs Malfoy," Dumbledore breaks in, "are currently being housed here at Grimmauld Place. It was Narcissa's handwriting you read on the slip of paper that told you of this address: please treat them with respect." Moody looks like "respect" should be redefined as a weapon with a lot of sharp edges, but he does go quiet again, crossing his arms over his chest. "You have each been invited to join the Order of the Phoenix - those of you, of course, who have reached the age of seventeen."

Tonks lets out a quiet chuckle as Harry frowns. Dumbledore smiles, and says, "If you would leave us, Mr Potter, Ms Granger..."

"No offence," Harry says, "But I've already faced Voldemort twice, and Hermione's helped in the latter endeavour. How many of the rest of you can say the same? I know Percy and Tonks have never looked him in the face before." Moody starts to laugh, and there's whispering around the room - Mrs Weasley looks horrified, and Harry can see the new people bickering quietly with others around the table. "I've faced Voldemort, and I've faced a Basilisk, too. I'm not just a random kid - I'm part of this fight whether I like it or not."

"The boy's right," Moody says. "Let him stay."

"He's a child," Mrs Weasley protests. "Who next, Albus? Our children?" Harry tries not to be annoyed with her - he can see that she's upset and anxious for him, but he doesn't want to leave.

"I'm not your child though, Mrs Weasley," Harry says. "I'm an orphan because of Lord Voldemort, and that should be reason enough for me to be allowed to stay."

"I give him my full support," Sirius says, crossing his arms over his chest, and Remus gives a reluctant nod of his own head.

"Put it to a vote, sir," Remus suggests, and Dumbledore gives a nod of his head.

"Those in favour of allowing Mr Potter-"

"And Hermione," Harry says. Hermione gives him a small smile,

"Those in favour of allowing Mr Potter and Ms Granger to stay, please raise your hands." Harry and Hermione both look around the room, watching the hands raise. "And those opposed?" Mrs Weasley, Percy, Lucius and Narcissa each raise their hands, but they're the only ones to, and Harry allows himself a tight smile as Dumbledore seems to accept this. "Let us begin, then," Dumbledore says, and he begins to talk.

* * *

The Order of the Phoenix's meeting is not nearly as interesting as Harry had expected it to be. It's dull, tiresome, and involves a lot of discussion of things that don't seem to directly be related to any expected return of Lord Voldemort - Cecilia presents an analysis of historic headquarters for the Death Eaters and the Order discusses where the Death Eaters might gather on a map of he UK, which Harry doesn't get, because they all know the Death Eaters are at Malfoy Manor. And then there's a big discussion about potential ward structures for protected places, where Lucius, Lindon, Dumbledore and an elderly gentleman called Elphias Doge speak for everyone else, as barely anyone else seems to have the same comprehension of the subject. And, finally, Dumbledore takes a list of duties - none of which Harry or Hermione can contribute to, anyway.

"Other members will be joining us in the next few days," Dumbledore says quietly, "We will engage another meeting in a week's time."

"Who else is joining?" asks Tonks, leaning forwards in her seat. "I know Mum and Dad are joining up, but who else?"

"Oh, a few people here and there," Dumbledore answers with a slight shrug of his shoulders and a small wave of his hand. Everyone splits into quiet conversation - Snape and Lucius begin to talk together, and Narcissa gets into a complex discussion with Hestia Jones that sounds to Harry like it's about different sort of silk. Hermione abandons him to talk to Bill and Celia about cursebreaking, talking animatedly on the subject and asking dozens of questions, and Moody seems to have backed Lindon into a wall, threatening the historian with a severe expression on his features.

"I'm gonna head to bed," Harry says to Sirius. His godfather had been settled alone at the table, still, looking faraway, and now he looks at Harry with raised eyebrows, having been drawn suddenly out of his reverie. "You okay?"

"Yeah, just fine," Sirius says, giving a shake of his head, and then he says quietly, "The last time me and Remus sat down for an Order meeting, James and Lily were just across from us. That's all."

"Sorry," Harry murmurs, and Sirius shoots him a tired smile, patting the side of his shoulder.

"Don't worry about it. Good job on joining the ranks, eh?" Sirius winks at him, and Harry gives a little smile in return."Have a good sleep, Harry."

"Cheers, Sirius, you too." Harry heads out of the room, closing the door behind him, but as soon as he's halfway up the stairs George grabs him around the middle, hauling him up and into the room directly above the dining room, where Draco had pulled out a floorboard to try and get a good listen to the room below. Judging by the frenzied, curious expressions of the twins, Ron, Ginny and Draco, they hadn't been all that successful. "Look, I'm not saying anything," Harry says firmly, shaking his head. "If your parents won't let you join up, it's not my fault."

"Oh, Harry, come on," Ginny complains, but Harry repeats his firm head shake, and he leaves the room. George follows after him, closing the door behind them.

"You gonna tell us tomorrow?" he asks, arching one of his eyebrows, and Harry nods his head.

"Yeah," Harry promises. "Me and Hermione will fill you in - if we volunteer to get rid of the Puffskeins in the yellow room, everyone else will probably leave us be, so we can tell you then."

"Sounds good," George says, grinning at him, and slips back into the room behind him. Harry walks down the corridor and into a room: with a quiet thunk, he drops onto his bed, pressing his face into the pillow. All of a sudden, he's exhausted - he doesn't even bother to change his clothes, just kicking his shoes to the floor, before he falls asleep.

* * *

"I don't see why we can't join!" Fred says irritably, coaxing a Puffskein into his hands. They're not very difficult animals to deal with - there's a positive infestation of them in the yellow room, named for its hideously ugly wallpaper, and they're usually happy to wander into the hands of whoever reaches for them. It's just that once they get into your arms, they're a bit over-affectionate.

"Because you're not seventeen," Harry replies, catching a Puffskein's long, dexterous tongue with his finger before it can get into Harry's nostril. "Your mum won't have it."

"You reckon we could breed these to be smaller, Fred?" George says distractedly. He's currently balancing eight Puffskeins across his arms, all of whom are emitting a warbling purr as they look lovingly up at his face. "You know, maybe half the size?"

"I suppose," Fred says, glancing at his brother. "You reckon they'd sell?"

"Oh, yeah," George nods his head, and Harry turns away as they begin to get into business conversation. Hermione is absently stroking a Puffskein with her knuckles, peering up at the empty wall as if it's somehow interesting.

"You alright?"

"It's the strangest thing, this wallpaper," Hermione mutters, her gaze scanning across its surface. "It makes me think of other yellow stuff - not buttercups or nice things, but... You know. Horrible, foul things." She scrunches up her nose, shaking her head. "And it smells, too, but I don't know how to describe it - all I could say is that it smells yellow." Harry glances at her perplexedly, but then she shakes her head, turning to look at him. "What did you think of last night?"

Harry sighs. "I dunno. It was- boring."

"You expected it to be more exciting?" Hermione asks, seeming a little amused.

"Yeah," Harry says, and she chuckles, setting the Puffskein neatly inside the basket they'd set aside for them. George sets the last of them into the large, wicker basket, and Fred lifts it up, bringing it down the stairs and down into the kitchen. "Alright, Ron?" Ron is sat in the kitchen with Bill, talking seriously with him, and Bill stands up immediately to help Fred with the Puffskeins.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm alright," Ron says. "Just telling Bill about try-outs this year."

"Lose a Weasley, gain a Weasley," George says fondly, ruffling Ron's hair. "It's getting to be a tradition, Ron, my lad."

"Actually," Ginny says from behind them as she enters the kitchen, "I figured with Percy gone I'd try out for Seeker. Ron's only looking to be a stand-in Keeper if anything happens to Oliver." Fred beams at her, seeming pleased. "So there may well be four of us."

"Well, three and a half," George says as Ron slaps his hand away. "Ronnie won't count as a stand-in."

"Shut up!" Ron says, and Harry glances back as she hears screaming from the hallway. He runs back, getting out his wand to cast Langlock on Mrs Black.

The woman stood on the doorstep has long, chestnut hair tied messily around her head, and her deep lidded eyes narrow as she looks across the room. Mrs Black's curtains have been thrown aside, and she is screeching at the top of her lungs, but when the woman yells, "Oh, shut up, you miserable old hag. There's a reason we're all alive and you're dead," she's shocked into silence, staring at her. The woman spells the curtains closed, and the man behind her gives a little grin.

"Well done, dear," he says genially, and the woman pats his chest affectionately as she steps inside, pulling the door closed behind her. "Is Sirius about?"

"Drom!" says Sirius from the landing, beaming down at her as he makes his way down the stairs, and Harry turns to look at the woman properly.

"Drom?" he repeats. "Andromeda Tonks?"

"Yes," she says lightly. "Yes, that's me." Harry gives a little laugh. He's never seen the woman's face before - he's only ever seen her frantic, curly handwriting spidering over parchment, but he feels like he knows her nonetheless.

"Oh, well, uh, I'm Harry. Harry Potter."

"Oh! Oh, of course you are! Just look at you!" Dromeda laughs, throwing back her head, and Harry acts without even thinking about it - he puts out his arms and hugs the woman tightly. Andromeda seems surprised, but she hugs him back, patting his shoulders as she smiles at him. She's one of the few people who's written him back since he was eleven, and seeing her in person is- it's odd. It's nice, warm, pleasant.

He still has the blanket she sent him in his first year.

"I'm Andromeda, love, and this is Ted. Ted, say hello."

"Hello," Ted says brightly, pushing his glasses up his nose. He and Andromeda are about Narcissa's age, Harry guesses, and Andromeda has pale skin and laughter lines obvious on her face; Ted's hair is parted to the left, and he has warm, friendly features. The both of them are dressed in Muggle clothes, with Andromeda in a surprisingly low-cut blouse and a rather tight skirt.

"Drom!" Sirius says again as he comes towards them, and he hugs her tightly before he looks to Ted. "And you must be the husband who saved her from that family of hers!"

"My knight in argyle socks," Drom agrees fondly, and Sirius shakes Ted's hand, patting his shoulder. "Where are we going, Sirius?"

"To the dining room," he answers, and Harry follows them inside. Harry fixes the Tonks with cups of tea, and he listens as Sirius begins to talk with them - he'd only really dimly realized that Andromeda and Sirius were cousins, and now seeing them chat back and forth it's nice to hear them go.

"Molly!" thunders a loud voice, and Harry turns his head as Lucius stamps into the dining room, dressed in a pair of Sirius' pyjama bottoms and nothing else. His bare feet are obscenely pale, and Harry can't help but stare a little at his chest: Lucius Malfoy has a lot of muscle on him. Harry's never really seen muscled wizards - Fred and George have buff arms, but Lucius Malfoy has thick, corded shoulder muscle and abs. He has visible abs.

"Oh, Lucius, darling," Drom says smoothly. "You needn't have dressed up on my account." Lucius glances at her, then flinches wildly, grabbing for his wand, but she tuts at him. "Andromeda, Lucius. Not Bellatrix." Lucius closes his eyes for a second, pinching his nose and seeming visibly annoyed, but he drops his wand into the pocket of the pyjama trousers as Molly, Bill, Ron and Ginny come into the room.

Harry watches Lucius as he crosses his arms over his chest: the bandage is still over the Dark Mark on his left arm, but above it on the upper arm is a thick, shiny square of skin, burned scar covering the straight edges.

"Merlin's balls, Mr Malfoy," Bill exclaims, giving the older man an unabashed grin. "You look like our Charlie!" Lucius curls his lip, staring at him.

"Pardon, William?" If looks could kill, Harry expects Bill would be in several dozen neat slices right about now.

"He means your muscles," Molly says, who's staring at Lucius' chest like it belongs to an alien. "How on Earth did you ge tlike that?"

"It's a process known as exercise," Lucius mutters with irritation obvious on his face, shaking his head as Dromeda stifles her giggles in Ted's shoulder, "Where are your hellspawn?"

"Arthur's just taken them out with Hermione to buy some groceries," Molly says sweetly. "Why, what have my hellspawn done?"

"They've stolen the contents of mine and Narcissa's wardrobes," he answers icily. "Leaving us without dress."

"Is, uh, is Narcissa undressed too?" Bill asks innocently, and Lucius reaches for his wand again: Harry grabs him by the wrist, stopping whatever horrible hex he's ready to cast on the chuckling cursebreaker. "They'll be back soon. Calm down." Lucius all but snarls in Bill's direction, and he stalks from the room and up the stairs again. Harry watches after him.

"Does he really exercise, d'you think?"

"Oh, does all sorts of little exercises at the crack of dawn, Narcissa used to say," Andromeda says, her lips twitching with amusement. "Good to see they've made a nice difference. You could look like that, Ted."

"I could," Ted says, seeming to weigh up the idea. "But I'd rather have another biscuit." Dromeda slides the plate towards him, and the two of them share a little laugh together.

"What was that he said?" Harry asks, turning back to them. "About Bellatrix?"

"Oh, we look rather similar, that's all," Andromeda says with a sigh. "Shame, really. She rather takes away from my brand." Harry laughs a little despite himself, and he listens carefully as they all set into conversation again. Harry can't help but enjoy the people who're beginning to come in and out of Grimmauld Place - it's exciting.

He just hopes the excitement will continue for the rest of the summer, especially in Order meetings.


	60. Year Four: Learning Curves

Harry frowns at the Prophet as he holds it in his hand, scanning the pages. One story had been about a sighting of Gilderoy Lockhart in Diagon Alley, where he'd gotten into an altercation with a woman while leaving Gringotts, and another had been about Death Eaters. Bellatrix Lestrange had been seen in Calais with a small group of other Death Eaters, too - it had been mentioned at last night's Order meeting, which had proved as dull as the first one.

The Prophet, unfortunately, offers no extra detail. He glances up as Tonks comes towards him, pulling one of his letters towards him and discarding the Prophet in irritation.

"Who are you writing now?" Tonks asks, leaning over his shoulder and peering curiously down at the stack of parchments on the table. He'd been worried about the Fidelius Charm, but all of the owls had come through it just fine. Sirius had explained it with a wave of his hand and a muttered set of words about different species and post charms and it's fine: it worries Harry a bit that the Charm can be so easily bypassed by owls, but he supposes the important thing is that wizards can't follow them through.

"Uh, I'm writing a reply to Mafalda Hopkirk... Do you know about something happening at Hogwarts this year?"

"No," Tonks says innocently, but there's a playfulness in her tone, and he narrows his eyes at her. He'd actually only written to Hopkirk with a technical enquiry about the use of magic objects outside of Hogwarts by underage students, but she'd mentioned excitement happening at Hogwarts this year.

"What? What's gonna happen?" Tonks taps the side of her nose, making it lengthen as she does so, and Harry leans away from her, laughing. He can't keep it from his mind, though - it's not the first sly implication he's heard of something at Hogwarts this year, and he wants to know what's going on.

After the World Cup, at least, maybe it'll be easier to find out something about it.

* * *

Harry sighs, unplugging the television and setting it aside with a shake of his head. "I told you," Hermione says without looking up from her book. "There's too much magic for it to work."

"My radio works sometimes," Harry retorts, and he takes up the screwdriver again, undoing the back of the television and putting the plastic casing aside.

"What are you doing?" Hermione asks, looking at him with an extremely irritating expression of amusement on her face.

"I'm going to make it work."

"You don't even know how the television works normally. Let alone with magic thrown into the mix." Much as he hates to admit it, she's right, and he throws the screwdriver down, staring at the mix of wires and confusing bits of metal in the back of the television.

"When I leave Hogwarts," Harry declares, "I'm going to make television work for wizards." Hermione drops a bookmark into her page, setting the book aside as she leans forwards. They're the only ones in the living room - Mrs Weasley is in the kitchen, baking in the peace of the household, and Narcissa is in the dining room with her own book. With everyone else out of the house, having made their way off to the World Cup, Grimmauld Place is ridiculously quiet, and the boredom is hitting Harry hard.

"They'll be back tomorrow morning," Hermione offers, and Harry sighs.

"Yeah," he agrees. "But it's not even five, yet."

"Are you children occupying yourselves?" Narcissa appears in the doorway, and Harry and Hermione glance up at her, mildly surprised. Narcissa, for the past few days, has been doing her level best to ignore Hermione entirely, but she looks at Harry and her both as she stands beside the doorframe.

"Uh, no, not really," Harry admits.

"Get up," Narcissa orders cleanly, clapping her well-manicured hands together. Harry and Hermione stare at her. "Come, come on. We must fight the ennui somehow."

"Are you bored too, Mrs Malfoy?" Hermione asks as she pulls herself out of her chair, and Narcissa les out a huff of sound, tossing her hair slightly as she leads them out into the hall and up the stairs.

"A lady is never bored, Ms Granger. At the very most, she may be disinterested." Hermione makes such an ugly face at Narcissa's back that Harry has to stifle a snort of laughter against his sleeve, and the both of them follow her into the yellow room. Narcissa sweeps the furniture aside with an easy, silent movement of her wand, and then she murmurs a quiet spell, conjuring three straw targets that fasten themselves upright before the three of them. "What offensive magic do you know? Ms Granger, you first."

"Uh, Densaugeo, Petrificus Totalus, the Jelly-Legs Jinx, Rictusempra, Expelliarmus, an Instant Scalping jinx, the Bat-Bogey Hex..."

"You know the Bat-Bogey hex?" Harry asks, and Hermione nods.

"Ginny taught me," Hermione says, and then continues, listing off a few more spells before turning to Harry.

"Uh, most of the stuff Hermione knows, but not the Bat-Bogey. And then I can cast a Knee-Reversal Hex-"

"Really?" Narcissa interrupts. She'd listened to Hermione rattle off the spells in her arsenal rather disinterestedly, only giving a nod now and then, but this spell seems to give her pause.

"Yeah, I learnt it in Snape's Duelling Club in second year." Narcissa hums, and she spells her sleeves to shorten themselves and draw themselves in against her arms, doing something similar to the skirt of her robes. "Oh, and we know Serpensortia."

"That's not really offensive magic," Hermione argues, but Narcissa gives a minute shake of her head.

"I suppose you learned that from Draco?" Narcissa asks, and they nod their heads. "It is excellent offensive magic for someone who isn't a duellist." She goes quiet for a few moments, considering what to say. She looks pretty, like this - Narcissa's hair is a beautiful light blonde, and her eyes are a deeper blue than Draco and Lucius', not as icy, and when she's pensive she looks ready to be added to a portrait at any moment. "Lucius and I are very different in this respect: I'm something of a natural duellist, and am comfortable with a variety of spells in my arsenal. Lucius can only cast a few hexes well, and thus he favours a more... Creative approach."

"Like conjuring snakes?" Hermione asks, and Narcissa nods her head.

"Precisely. I would guess, Harry, that you're something of a wonder on the duelling ground - a Kneel-Reversal Hex at twelve is very impressive. And you, Ms Granger, what magic would you say you're best at?" The question is asked so severely that Harry wonders for a second if it's a trick question, but Narcissa's expression is serious, and she concentrates on Hermione's face as she asks it.

"I don't think I'm best at any sort of magic, Mrs Malfoy," Hermione says eventually. "I'm not naturally gifted at any of them, particularly, but I can apply myself to different things." She seems a little nervous about answering, but Narcissa seems to approve of the answer, looking between the two of them appraisingly.

"Let's begin with something simple," she decides. "A Jelly-Fingers curse - it will debone your opponent's wand hand. Ideal for a rapid disarmament." Narcissa's targets are soon spelled into metal forms instead of straw ones, and then she says, "Watch me."

* * *

"I did it!" Hermione says after a few hours of practice, running towards her target. Holding up the target's gloved right hand, she shows that no metal fingers are plain inside, and Narcissa gives a little clap of her hands. It takes Harry a little longer, but when he does manage it, Narcissa beams at him, and they break to eat downstairs.

"And what is your favourite offensive spell, Molly?" Narcissa asks with the sort of forced politeness Harry has come to expect from the Malfoys. Mrs Weasley considers the question, chewing her bite of her sandwich in a delicate fashion.

"Colei novis," she answers finally, and Narcissa hides a small titter behind the back of her hand. Molly glances between Hermione and Harry, and then says, "When your opponent's got a rod and tackle, it, er- It twists them up."

"Can you teach me that?" Hermione asks immediately, and Harry shudders.

"Of course you'd want to learn it," he says. "That sounds awful."

"When faced with an opponent who will happily kill you, Harry, you ought use any tool in your arsenal," Narcissa says, pushing her plate neatly aside. "Back to work, I think." Mrs Weasley looks a little worried at the idea, but she doesn't protest, and simply settles back to let them go. Narcissa's a surprisingly good teacher, and Harry's glad to learn something a bit more... Well. Practical.

* * *

"Can't we keep going?" Harry asks, and Narcissa laughs, pushing the three targets she'd conjured aside. She shakes out her sleeves, bringing them back to their usual length, and she gestures for Harry and Hermione to precede her down the stairs. Harry does feel tired, he supposes, but he could easily keep on going. Hermione looks a little tired herself, but she seems to have a similar want to keep on going.

"It's nearly midnight," Narcissa replies, chuckling. "I-" There's a harsh slam as the front door is thrown open, and they freeze on the stairs: it's raining heavily outside, and Lucius stumbles over the threshold with Ginny in his arms - she's a sickly pale white, and Lucius runs with her into the dining room.

"Sirius!" Harry says as Narcissa rushes into the dining room: his godfather's hair is singed and smoking, cuts all over his face, and he supports Fred into the room. Fred is coughing blood that stains the front of his bright green shirt and the carpet, and Harry's blood runs cold as he follows them into the dining room.

Ginny is sat up on the dining table, choking as she spits water out, and Mrs Weasley rubs her back. Ginny's eyes are wide and watering, and Harry looks at her in horror. "It's a jinx," Lucius says, shaking his head and rubbing over his cheek. "It makes you feel like you're drowning. Draco, bring him over here!" Draco and George have Ron between them, and Lucius pushes him to sit down in one of the dining chairs. Ron's leg looks somehow wrong, and Lucius is careful about cutting up the denim of his jeans.

"Oh, my God," Hermione says sharply, putting her hand over her mouth and turning her head away: Harry can't quite tear away his gaze, though, and just keeps staring: Ron's leg is swollen on the right side, the flesh bent into an unnatural shape, and Harry can see his kneecap is completely out of place.

"This," Lucius murmurs quietly, "is going to cause you some mild discomfort."

"It's going to fucking hurt, Ron," George translates, squeezing his brother's shoulder, and Ron lets out a cry of pain as Lucius spells the kneecap back into place. Harry runs to grab some pain killers from the kitchen, and surveys the chaos as he pours small amounts of Auxlian Elixir into shot glasses. Mrs Weasley is bent over Fred, casting different charms over him, and Narcissa is doing her best to heal the open cuts on Sirius' face.

Harry feels utterly powerless as everyone bustles back and forth - just a few minutes ago Harry had felt like he'd really be able to handle himself in a fight, and now?

Now he's not sure at all.


	61. Year Four: The World Cup

"Come here, Mr Weasley," Dumbledore says in a very quiet, serious tone, and Fred moves immediately, doing his best to stand up and face Dumbledore. It's been an hour now since the Malfoys, Sirius and the Weasleys returned from the Quidditch World Cup, and everyone is sat anxiously around the dining hall in one chair or another. George is holding tightly to Fred's arm, helping him to stay on his feet: he just keeps on coughing, and every single retch and choke brings more thick blood out of his mouth.

Sirius and Mrs Weasley had been about to take him to St Mungo's when Mr Weasley had finally appeared with Dumbledore in tow, and Harry feels a sweeping relief as Dumbledore does a few complicated twists of his wand and Fred gasps for breath, no longer spitting anything out of his mouth. Bill presses a glass of water into his brother's hand, patting his back, and Fred drinks greedily to try and soothe his throat. There'd been a sense of rising panic as every counterspell and healing charm each of the adults had tried had failed to work, and the relief in the room is palpable as Fred breathes in heavy breaths.

Lucius is holding Narcissa's hand tightly in his own, and Draco leans into the half hug Narcissa gives him: it's a good thing Draco inherited his mother's more slender form rather than his father's broad shoulders, Harry thinks, else they wouldn't fit together on the loveseat at the side of the room. Hermione is putting a greenish balm on Ginny's neck to soothe some of the bruises there, and everyone else sits mutely around the room, staring into the empty air.

"Arthur did not have time to tell me," Dumbledore says quietly, "what precisely occured."

"They came for us, Draco and I," Lucius says, his grip tight on the glass of whiskey in his right hand; his left remains interlinked with his wife's, and from the look of it Lucius has no plans to let Narcissa go for the rest of the evening.

"I'd left the tent to, er," Sirius glances at Mrs Weasley, and then says, "flirt with some girls I'd met in the stadium. I didn't think anything of it - the two of them were exhausted, and I was just coming back to the tent when I saw the flames licking at the entrance. I drew the both of them out, but there was fire everywhere."

"They were marching," Bill adds. "Twenty or thirty of them in their masks, and others had broken off to grab some people from the crowd."

"One of them took me," Ginny says quietly. "Recognized my hair."

"That's how Ron got hurt," Bill says. "The three of us were coming back to the tent together, and Ron lunged at the woman who cursed her."

"Us and Dad were in the tent still," George says.

"And I told you to stay in the tent," Arthur says.

"We didn't do that," Fred says without a semblance of guilt. "Put two of the bastards on the ground before one of them hit me with that curse." Harry tries to make sense of all of their stories - Ginny, Bill and Ron walking together, the twins and Arthur still in the tent, and Sirius finding the Malfoys in theirs. He feels trapped, all of a sudden, and he keeps thinking of them all - Ron, with his twisted leg, Ginny drowning in the middle of the room, Fred coughing up everything in his chest.

"Why were you all split up?" he demands, looking between them all. "Are you stupid or something? What the Hell, Sirius, you just left the Malfoys to go flirt with someone?" Sirius startles somewhat, obviously surprised, but the others just look between each other, shaking their heads.

"Harry," Bill says quietly, shaking his head at him. "There'd been no sign that anything was going to wrong or awry. We were enjoying the excitement of the game, of the win. Ireland had-"

"I don't care who won," Harry snaps out, and he feels Dumbledore' hand on his shoulder. He glances at the old man, who just meets Harry's eyes for a second: usually, if Dumbledore tried to do something like this, he'd be annoyed, but somehow it calms him down a little, and he shrugs Dumbledore's hand off him, going quiet again.

He listens in silence as Arthur explains how he'd got them all together, to go to a portkey they'd set up for London, and Harry lets himself zone out, dropping himself into space. He replays it again and again - Sirius' burns, Ginny drowning... It's horrible. All that magic is just horrible, and he can't believe he'd just been enjoying learning to cast a scalping hex when-

"Harry?" He jolts, pulled out of his spiralling daydream, and he looks around the room. Everyone is staring at him, and Hermione's hand is on his lower arm. "Dumbledore was asking us why we didn't go," Hermione murmurs, frowning at him, and Harry sighs, shaking his head.

"I didn't want to be in the crowd," Harry admits, shaking his head. "It seemed like a lot of people to deal with. When Hermione said she wasn't really interested, I thought we could both stay back."

"And you, Narcissa?" Dumbledore asks, turning to her and raising his silver eyebrows.

"I hate Quidditch," Narcissa answers simply. "I think it's dull."

"You're mad, Mrs Malfoy," George says, and despite himself Harry snorts. Narcissa puts her nose in the air, but even Draco offers a weak little laugh.

"I was teaching the children a few hexes," Narcissa says. She doesn't look at Lucius as she speaks, but he keeps his gaze focused on her face. "We were upstairs - I thought taking advantage of some time to study might be beneficial." Harry doesn't miss the way Lucius' eyes widen slightly, nor the comprehension on his face.

"The children?" Lucius repeats, glancing at Hermione and curling his lip slightly. "What-"

"And you, Molly?" Dumbledore interrupts before Lucius can continue, and Harry feels a little grateful for that.

"I like a game of Quidditch, but I don't much like to watch it," she answers tiredly, "Do you think this is important?"

"No," Dumbledore says, shaking his head. "I merely wished to check. I know Percival didn't attend because of constraints of his work: he and Mr Crouch required him to complete some paperwork at the Ministry."

"Did anyone die?" Ginny asks. Harry only now notices that her voice is slightly hoarse, and he feels an extra pang of sympathy for her: she stands firm, though, and isn't shaking despite what she's just been through. None of the Weasleys are, actually, except Fred - they're all a lot hardier than Harry had expected. Dumbledore is silent in response to the question.

"It's too early to be certain as to the precise number of casualties," he says quietly, obviously doing his best to be charitable, but Ginny shakes her head.

"Please, Professor. Who died?"

"Percival is completely fine," Dumbledore says, "He was sent back to the Ministry at six o'clock this evening. I say this because Bartemius Crouch was discovered dead beneath the Dark Mark not long after." Harry stares at him, utterly taken aback by what he's said - Barty Crouch, with his tough-bristled moustache and eternally stern expression, had never really struck Harry as capable of dying. "A few witches from the Salem Institute have been hospitalized with heavy spell damage, but to my awareness Mr Crouch was the only casualty."

There's silence in the room, and Arthur says, "You should all get to bed, I think. We can worry in the morning."

"Did he have any family?" Harry asks, looking at Dumbledore. "He never- he never really mentioned any, when he wrote me, so I didn't know..."

"His son was a Death Eater," Lucius murmurs. "He died in Azkaban, and his wife died of grief soon after. He never remarried." It strikes Harry with a particular melancholy, and he stays still as the Weasleys slowly split off to go to bed - Hermione and Ginny make their way up the stairs together, the twins in their pursuit. Harry stays in place, silent. Nobody bothers him - Bill goes to bed, as well as Draco, Ron, Lucius and Mrs Weasley, and it's only then that Sirius sits down beside him.

Mr Weasley is talking seriously with Dumbledore, too quietly for Harry to hear even if he strains: Sirius is silent as he puts his arm around Harry's shoulder and delivers a small kiss to the top of his head. He rubs Harry's upper forearm, and Harry breathes in, slowly. There's a slow sickness twisting his belly, making shivers run up his spine, and he can't quite verbalize what he's feeling for a few minutes. For that time, he and Sirius sit in the silence together, the only sounds in the room coming from Dumbledore and Mr Weasley's quiet mutterings.

"Would it have been different, do you think, if I'd come?" Harry asks finally, and Sirius shakes his head right away, like he'd been waiting for the question. Guilt ghosts through Harry's body, despite his having not even gone, but he can't help but wonder - would it have been different, if he'd gone? Could he have saved Crouch somehow? "I could have-"

"No, Harry," Sirius says, rubbing Harry's arm. He smells burnt, and Harry wonders how long it will take for him to fix his hair, which is uneven on one side. "You couldn't have done anything. He was a very capable wizard - a demon in a duel. Nothing you could have done would have saved him." Harry leans against Sirius' side, closing his eyes as his godfather plays absently with his hair, and he breathes in slowly, doing his best to ignore the smoky odour from his hair.

"I want to go to his funeral," Harry says. He's never been to a funeral before. He was never taken to his parents' funeral - did they even have a funeral? - and although he remembers Aunt Petunia going to one or two, Harry had never been brought along. What's a funeral like, even? He doesn't know. But he knows he wants to go to Barty Crouch's - even if he hadn't really known the man, he feels like he's lost something.

"'Course," Sirius says. "Sure, yeah. You can probably go with Percy - Mad-Eye will go too." Sirius' hand rubs slowly over Harry's shoulder, and Harry swallows down the thickness in his throat. It isn't that he wants to cry. In honesty, he just feels sick. "You gonna head to bed, kid?"

"Yeah," Harry says lowly. "Yeah, Sirius, I'll go. Sorry."

"Don't be sorry," Sirius says firmly. "Don't be sorry."

* * *

Harry stays in his room the next day. He reads through old letters the old man had sent him - Crouch had never been a regular penfriend of his, but he has a dozen or so pieces of correspondence. He doesn't know why he's bothering: every letter is curt, simple and polite, but Crouch had never spilled his life's secrets on the page or displayed his heart. He'd just been a professional man who'd been nice enough to write Harry back.

Harry sits on the floor, leaning against the back of his armchair and absently paging through books, not really reading any of them. He doesn't feel social, and nor does he feel hungry, so he doesn't bother coming downstairs for breakfast. At twelve, one of the Malfoys' house elves appears with a bacon sandwich, sets it beside Harry, and then disappears.

He doesn't eat it.

Harry doesn't even feel like playing a record - all he wants to do is sit and think about the Death Eaters, and wonder how many more people they'll kill this year.

Hedwig brings him a letter in the early evening from Afifa Lanjwani: it's a normal thing, just telling Harry how she's doing and how she's enjoying work in her parents' shop. He sets it aside, and he pets Hedwig when she sits beside him, settling in the silence.

The knock on his door in the early evening isn't entirely unexpected. "Come in," Harry calls, and he hears the door open.

"Harry?" Remus asks. From his current position, Harry's out of sight, and he waves his hand to the left of the armchair so that Remus can see him. He knows why Sirius has sent Remus - Sirius isn't great at talking about feelings, even though he tries, and Remus is a little better. Still terrible at it, but a little better.

"Down here." He hears the door shut closed, and Remus comes into the room. Harry stays in his place, cross-legged against the back of his chair, and Remus slides down against the wall across from him, his hands on his knees. For a long time, neither of them say anything. Remus seems like he's waiting for Harry to say something, but for Harry doesn't feel like saying anything. And then, the question suddenly coming back to him, he asks, "Did my parents have a funeral?" Remus stares at him, obviously not having expected the question, and then he nods his head.

"Yes, of course they did."

"Were you the only person to go?" Harry asks. He doesn't know why, but asking the question hurts him. He has a terrible visual of Remus in some churchyard in the rain, holding a tattered umbrella over his head, all alone.

"No," Remus answers. "No. I was there, for your mother and father. Minerva McGonagall came, Filius Flitwick, and Albus. Hagrid..." Remus trails off, and he looks at the patched knees of his trousers, letting out a quiet sigh. "It wasn't that your parents didn't have more friends, of course, it was-"

"All of them were already dead, or in prison," Harry finishes. He speaks dully. "I know all my family had been killed already. I asked a lot about them, in fist year, when I was writing people - no one ever mentioned you or Sirius to me, 'cause I never asked about you. I asked about grandparents, and uncles, and stuff. It never occurred to me that I'd have some. And they'd be alive now, if it hadn't been for the war, wouldn't they?"

"I can't know that for certain," Remus says immediately, but Harry ignores him, looking at Hedwig and stroking over her cheek. She coos at him, giving a small, affectionate nip to the side of his hand. "The Potters were all- they were all very focused on the cause, Harry. They wanted to protect-"

"I know," Harry says. "I know. It's okay."

"You haven't eaten anything," Remus murmurs, and Harry shrugs his shoulders.

"Don't really feel like it," he replies. Remus doesn't nag like Mrs Weasley or Lucius would, and nor does he push the plate of cold sandwich towards Harry. He just looks at Harry with his sad eyes, and gives a slow nod of his head. "What's happening downstairs?"

"Lucius and Bill arm-wrestled," Remus offers, and Harry gives him a weak smile. Remus looks more well-rested than usual, but the full moon is coming soon, and Harry knows it won't last.

"Did they bet on it?"

"Of course."

"How much did Lucius win?"

"A Galleon." Harry laughs a little, quietly, and he leans his head into it when Hedwig gently butts her head against his temple. "I'll come downstairs for dinner," Harry promises, and Remus gives a slow nod of his head.

"Alright, Harry," Remus murmurs. "We love you, you know, Sirius and I." It makes Harry glance up, and he stares at Remus. Remus' expression is intense and focused, but he's never said that to Harry before. The words echo in his ears.

"Yeah," Harry says, barely hearing his own, thick voice. "Yeah, I love you too." When he hears the door shut closed, he closes his eyes, and he lets himself let out a small sob. He feels stupid for crying over anything at all, let alone over the death of a bloke he didn't even know, but he can't really stop himself. Especially when that's not all he's crying over.

He just hides his face in Hedwig's feathers and lets himself cry.

* * *

"Do you feel better?" Hermione asks when Harry sits next to her at dinner, and he considers the question for a little bit. He'd dabbed his eyes with cold water, trying to make them look a little less red-rimmed, but he's worried it's obvious he's been crying.

"Yeah," he decides. "Yeah, a little." She reaches for his hand, giving it a squeeze, and he gives her a small smile before they begin to eat. Everyone talks at dinner: Draco is animatedly continuing an argument with Ron, who goes a darker shade of red the more Draco continues, and that's mostly what Harry listens to the whole way through. It's not even a subject he cares about - they're arguing about whether chess should be considered legitimate enough for a competition - but they're both so irritated about it it's impossible not to be entertained.

There aren't that many people at dinner: neither Mr Weasley nor Bill are present, and Narcissa is gone too. The twins are home, but they aren't at the table. Barring Draco and Ron, everyone is a little muted, and Harry's a little glad for that - he loves the animated conversation of Grimmauld Place, but tonight he's grateful for something a little quieter.

"There's a meeting tonight," Sirius says to Harry, and Harry nods his head, glancing to Hermione.

"I'm coming, yeah," Hermione answers his silent question, and both Draco and Ron drop their argument to glance their way.

"Why can't we join if they can?" Ron demands for the fifth time, and Mrs Weasley opens her mouth to respond, but Harry interrupts.

"Hands up if you're an orphan because of Lord Voldemort," Harry says dryly. He raises his own hand, watching Draco and Ron with arched eyebrows. "Now raise your hand if you and you parents are at risk from Lord Voldemort simply because of your blood status." Hermione raises hers. "There it is, Ron. That's the reason."

Remus hides his laughter in his cup, and Sirius reaches over, patting Harry's face with obvious fondness. Harry leans back and out of his godfather's reach, shaking his head at the man, and Sirius laughs openly, putting his hand on Remus' shoulder instead. Harry nearly misses the way Sirius' fingers linger there for a second before he draws his hand slowly away again, and he frowns slightly, a little perplexed by it, but he brushes the thought away.

"Who's coming tonight?" Hermione asks.

"Well," Remus says, and he begins to list some names.


	62. Year Four: Planning For The Future

"No Death Eaters captured!" Mad-Eye storms, banging the base of his cup on the table. "None of them! Two fifteen-year-olds Stunned a few of 'em, and that useless lot couldn't capture a one." Across from Mad-Eye at the table, Kingsley steeples his fingers, silent. Beside the both of them, Tonks sits with her head in her hands, shaking her head slowly. The three of them all look exhausted, and Harry watches them for a few seconds. Beside her, Andromeda pats her daughter's back, and Tonks just shakes her head, her hair lengthening and thickening into an ugly, mousy grey-brown.

"Were any killed?" Harry asks, and Mad-Eye seems surprised at the question, glancing at him.

"Aye, lad. A man named Scabior, nasty little so-and-so, and, er, Valiant Crabbe. Scabior was an Azkaban escapee, but Crabbe was free. Got caught by friendly fire from one of his friends." Mad-Eye lets out an ugly little laugh, and Harry nods his head.

"Well, that's the bright side, at least."

"Harry!" says Mrs Weasley from the side of the room, looking shocked, and Harry glances at the other members of the Order. People are shooting him odd or offended looks, and Harry feels himself scoff.

"Well, sorry, Mrs Weasley, but they're Death Eaters. I'm not going to feel bad that they're dead."

"They're still people, Harry," Arthur murmurs, a frown on his face, and Harry shakes his head. He doesn't back down.

"They would have let Ginny drown in front of them, and laugh as she fell," Harry retorts. "If they're people, Mr Weasley, it's only barely." There's a silence that rings through the room for a moment, and then Mad-Eye grins at him.

"The lad's got the right idea," he says brightly: his bad mood seems to have been cleared right up by Harry's unpopular opinion, and Harry gives the old man a funny look.

"Unpolished though his opinion might be," Lucius says cleanly, "He's correct. I was duelling to kill with the Death Eaters that came for my son - it makes no sense to do otherwise. Any one of them would kill you all if they believed it would please to the Dark Lord."

"Including you, Malfoy?"

"No, Mr Moody," Lucius retorts. "I shall have to return to my previous hobbies of deflowering young ladies and murdering cats." He draws out the sibilance of the 's', glaring at Moody, and Harry hears Snape let out a sound that's almost laughter. Moody rips his head around to glare at him, too, but before he can continue Lindon Sartorius clears his throat in a dramatic fashion.

"If anyone's interested," he says silkily, "Cecilia and I were also nearly murdered last night."

"No one's interested," Lucius says, and then he hisses. Harry had felt Narcissa's foot move sharply under the table, and he tries to hide his laugh in his sleeve. Lindon tosses his hair slightly, ignoring Lucius, and he waits until everyone is looking at him and Celia before he continues.

"Gilderoy Lockhart, Chad Arnett and Bonnie Darling accosted us in the Three Broomsticks in Hogsmeade. Lockhart, I can sadly report, is lacking in his previous good looks. He's all sallow, and his hair is a mess. Chad, however-" There's laughter around the room, and Harry smiles too - he likes Lindon's sarcastic sense of humour, and he likes the way the man isn't afraid to flourish his sexuality, even if it makes Lucius fume in his seat.

"Lockhart's obviously been training," Celia interrupts, putting her hand over Lindon's and forcing him quiet. "He doesn't meet Arnett or Darling for skill nor flourish, but he did some damage. While they're not going to offer the same threat as the Death Eaters, or You-Know-You if the Lestranges find him, I don't think we can just brush them off. Lockhart was saying something about a list."

"A list?" Sturgis Podmore asks, leaning forwards. "List of what?"

"Names, we think," Lindon says, becoming a little more serious again. "He mentioned us, Mr Snape, a few Hogwarts teachers... As well as young Harry, of course." Harry sighs.

"Did he mention Hermione, or just me?"

"Just you," Celia answers. "But I'm sure he'll try and murder you too, dear, if he gets the chance."

"Thanks," Hermione replies dryly. "That does make me feel better. What are people doing about him? Anything?"

"We think he'll be drawn to Hogwarts this year," Bill says. Beside him, Percy gives a serious nod of his head, and Harry frowns at them, narrowing his eyes slightly. "For those of you who don't already know, they're going to be hosting the Triwizard Cup this year." There are a few gasps and hums around the room, and Harry and Hermione share an urgent look. "Given what a big event it's going to be, with the public allowed in during the events, both the Death Eaters and Lockhart's lot are probably going to try and use it as some kind of platform."

"Given that, um," Percy's voice shakes a little as he speaks, but he raises his chin, and says a little more firmly, "Given that the Tournament is already underway, it's far too late for us to draw back. Nonetheless, with foreign students at Hogwarts and the gates open to spectators, we'll have to be careful with security. For each event, I would suggest we have several Order members amongst the crowds, that we might act fast in the event of any crises."

"An excellent suggestion, Mr Weasley," Dumbledore says, nodding his head.

"With myself, Albus, Severus and Cecilia on the staff," McGonagall says from beside him, her arms crossed over her chest, "we ought be able to handle what goes on within the castle."

"Cecilia?" Harry repeats. "Why're you on the staff?"

"Oh," she says. "I'm your new Defence teacher." Harry turns his head, and he looks at Remus. The other man is quiet, looking down at his fingernails, but then he looks up.

"With the additional risk of foreign students in school, as well as various visitors, we thought it best I not retain my position for this year. Given my... Condition." It's obvious Remus is embarrassed, and he coughs quietly. Tonks is looking at him with a quiet, obvious sympathy on her face, and the silence in the room is... Awkward.

"Let us discuss added security to the Triwizard Tasks," Dumbledore says, and everyone tears their gaze from him. Everyone, it seems like, except Harry. Remus looks so sad once no one's looking at him, and it makes Harry feel a twinge of sympathy.

* * *

"You're coming to the funeral on Sunday then, lad?" Mad-Eye says, and Harry gives a nod of his head. He honestly can't decide whether the grizzled old man likes him or not - Moody tends to look at up with with suspicion, but he also laughs a lot at things Harry says. He doesn't yet know if that's something good or not.

"Yes, sir," Harry says. "I didn't know Mr Crouch all that well, but I'd written him, and he'd struck me as a pretty good man. Maybe a bit of a workaholic, but a moral one." Moody gives a nod of his head, but apparently that's the end of the conversation - he limps off to talk to McGonagall, and Harry lets out a quiet sigh of relief. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Lindon's violet robes, and he turns his head to see him being pulled into the kitchen after Sirius.

Frowning, Harry walks across the room, carefully opening the door and slipping inside.

"Leave him alone!"

"Leave him alone? I hardly follow the young man about, Mr Black." Harry creeps behind one of the cabinets of crockery, and then he leans around it. Lindon is sat in one of the kitchen chairs, looking utterly unruffled, but Sirius seems furious. "He and I are rather good friends."

"If you so much as think of touching him-" Sirius hisses.

"Oh, don't insult me," Lindon says, shaking his head. "The boy's a child. What, do you think I'm tiptoeing through the tulips, corrupting any boy I make my way by?"

"I'm sure you'd love to," Sirius growls. Harry ducks back behind the cabinet as Sirius glances back, and he doesn't risk leaning around it again - he just listens, staying as still as he can. "He's my godson, Sartorius. If you do anything untoward, I'll use you to carpet the stairs."

"He's hardly mooning over me, Black," Lindon replies, apparently amused by the threats. Harry wonders if the man has any idea how to respond sensibly to threats. "Unlike that Weasley, of course."

"What?" Sirius demands.

"Young William. Your godson is at no risk from me, but he positively salivates whenever Bill-" There's the sick sound of flesh hitting flesh, and Harry hears Lindon let out a grunt of pain. "I do believe you're being the slightest bit oversensitive, Black."

"Leave him alone." The kitchen door is thrown open, and Harry hides behind it as Narcissa enters the room, beginning to boil hot water for coffee. "Alright, Cissy?"

"What on Earth are you two doing in here, skulking in the dark?"

"Nothing, nothing," Lindon says, and he slips from the room, followed by Sirius. Harry watches after them, frowning, and then comes out from behind the door, going back into the dining hall. He'd not actually considered telling Sirius about his interest in blokes, but nor had he told him about his interest in girls: he doesn't know what to think of what he's just overheard, though, and he elects to just push it aside. There's no sense in thinking about it when he can't do anything.

Lindon doesn't seem bothered at all, and he settles into his usual chatter with Cecilia, his hand on her shoulder. He glances to Sirius, who speaks irritably with Remus, and he furrows his brow slightly.

Yeah, he doesn't want to deal with this tonight.

* * *

"How was it?" Hermione asks when Harry comes in, and he shrugs his shoulders. It had been a pretty modest funeral, and it had been surreal and odd - most of the attendees had been people from the Ministry, workmates of the man's. He doesn't know what to say. It had been a nice service, he supposes, for a dead man. "You alright?"

"Yeah," Harry murmurs. "Yeah, I'm fine. What's going on?"

"Fred and George are trying to listen in on Snape and Malfoy. They're talking in the library downstairs." Harry laughs a little, shucking open the collar of his robes.

Harry chuckles, and then says, "I'm just gonna go find Sirius, alright? Do you know where he is?"

"I think he's in the kitchen," Hermione answers, and he nods his head, heading down the stairs. Percy had been utterly quiet at the funeral - he'd stood beside Kingsley Shacklebolt, looking utterly out of place, and Harry remembers wondering what he'd do for a job, now. He'll find something, of course, but for the time being? He'd just seemed stuck.

He glances at the Owl Gazette open on the kitchen counter, which lists sightings of Azkaban escapees across the UK, and he looks to Sirius. His godfather is whistling to himself as he works, spelling the dishes in the sink to wash themselves, and Harry closes the kitchen door, leaving them alone. Sirius glances at him.

"What's up, Harry?"

"I wanted to ask you something," Harry says quietly. "I was thinking about it, at Mr Crouch's funeral... I know I'm young, but I think this is something I should start doing." Sirius frowns at him, concern obvious on his features, and he focuses on Harry's face.

"What, what is it?" Harry breathes in, preparing himself, and then he meets his godfather's gaze.

"I want to become an Animagus. I want you to teach me." He steels himself, wondering if Sirius is going to immediately refuse him, but the relief on Sirius' face is swiftly replaced with everything but a refusal.

He's never seen his godfather smile so wide.


	63. Year Four: Wizarding Delights

It's coming up to one o'clock in the afternoon, and Sirius reaches out, shaking Harry's shoulder excitedly. He hesitates for a moment, though, seeming to think, and then says, "Have you got your broom?"

"Yeah," Harry answers, nodding his head. "It's up in my room."

"Let's go for a flight," Sirius says, and he heads up the stairs. Harry's quick about putting on his cloak and his gloves, and he heads down the stairs with his broom in hand. He hasn't flown since sometime last year, and he's excited to get on his broom again; Sirius comes down with a broom in his own hand, and Harry peers at it, curiously. "It's Lucius'," he answers, and Harry nods his head. The Firebolt is of a sleek design, and it looks positively wonderful, but Harry can hardly focus on it. Sirius murmurs a few spells to ensure they're not obvious to the Muggles, and Harry grins at him.

They mount their brooms together on the doorstep, and they fly side-by-side straight up from Grimmauld Place, heading out and away from London. For a little while, they just fly together - the Firebolt is fast, and it shifts at any bare thought from Sirius, but Harry knows his Cleansweep inside-out, and he still manages to evade Sirius despite the difference in their brooms.

It feels amazing, the wind in his hair, the feel of the broom beneath him, and he laughs as he drops into a tumbling roll in the air, hearing the whistle as Sirius tries to copy him - clumsily.

Once they're out and over countryside, they slow down a little, and Sirius says, "Thought it'd be better if we didn't talk about this in the house. Molly'd go ballistic." Harry laughs a little: Sirius doesn't seem to be scared of anything at all except, sometimes, for the wrath of Molly Weasley. "What about the funeral made you think about it?"

"Nothing particularly," Harry admits, adjusting his grip on the broom and looking out over the green fields brightly lit by the sun. "I dunno, I just saw this fox in the graveyard, all hidden. I think I was the only person who saw it." Harry had never seen a wild fox before, and he had been surprised at the size of it and its surprisingly sleek, reddish fur. It had wriggled under the hedge and out of the cemetery as soon as it had seen the group of people in it, but the image of it had stuck with him. "It went completely unseen, pretty much. With Voldemort and the Death Eaters, and Lockhart..."

"Well," Sirius says. "Obviously I have to tell you that if we do this, you should register." Harry glances at Sirius' serious expression. It lasts a few seconds before Sirius begins to laugh at his own joke. Harry shakes his head, trying not to be amused at his godfather's stupid sense of humour, and Sirius asks, "You think that's what you'd be? A fox?"

"Don't know," Harry answers. "My Patronus is a stag, and that's what Dad was, right?"

"You don't strike me as much of a stag, Harry," Sirius says, looking thoughtful. His long hair is whipped back from his head by the wind and the momentum from their flight, and Harry thinks of how shaggy it is in his dog form. Will Harry's hair be eternally messy, even when he's an animal? "But we can't know until you actually transform. I should say, though, it's dangerous and it's awkward, against the rules, blah blah blah..."

"Yeah, you're doing a great job of deterring me, Sirius," Harry retorts, and Sirius grins at him. "What exactly is the process?"

"We've got some books in the Black library," Sirius says, "but there's a bit of ritual magic involved. A bit of astronomy, some runes, some potions, some charms, some mental stuff... You'd think it'd be all transfiguration, but its a whole mess of magics, really. Starting out, you need to prime your body for transformation as you study. There's a lot of meditation involved, and you have to eat some pretty awful stuff. That's the first stage."

Harry sniggers at Sirius' fond smile as he talks, and he nods his head.

"The second stage is drawing in the necessary magic. You know how magic works in that respect, yeah, you draw a little in from the world around you, bend it to your purpose, and then send it back out?" Harry nods his head. "Well, the Animagus transformation involves drawing a lot into your body without sending it out again. You have to build up a tolerance to certain magic, draw it into you. That's one of the bits that can go horribly wrong. Then, the third stage involves partial transformation, bit my bit. More meditation's involved, and you have to try and change stuff like your skin a bit at a time."

"That can go horribly wrong too?"

"Oh, yeah," Sirius says. "James had to go to Madam Pomfrey to get his antlers shaved off in fifth year, and I had a tail for about a month in the summer of '76. None of us died, though."

"That is a pro," Harry agrees, and he grasps tightly at his broom's handle, dropping himself into a barrel roll. Sirius laughs, following him, and for a while they zoom back and forth, playing a game of tag in the air. They head down to the ground after a while, and Sirius grasps at Harry's arm to Apparate him back to Grimmauld Place. The two of them linger on the doorstep for a while, and Harry says, "You gonna tell Remus?"

"If that's alright with you," Sirius says. Harry gives a nod of his head, and then Sirius asks, "You going to tell Hermione?"

"Yeah," Harry says. "Yeah, I think so. No one else, though." Sirius nods, and they move inside together. Sirius takes both of their brooms upstairs, and Harry slips into the library to take out some of the books on Animagi. He freezes as he puts his fingers on one of the leatherbound spines, utterly quiet.

"I'm merely saying, Severus," he hears Lucius say. "She's a very pretty woman." Harry tries to ignore the conversation the two men are having, scanning the titles in front of him - Order in Occlumency, Poisons For The Ideal Widow, Spiders And Their Uses, The Pride of Animagi, Dastardly Defences...

"I could not possibly care less about her physical appearance, Lucius."

"You're not that old," Lucius continues, apparently ignoring Snape's response. "There's more than enough time for you to marry. You have time to have children." Pressing his own thumb against his mouth to keep from laughing, Harry gives up reading book spines.

"I don't want children."

"Oh, come now. Your children would be so lovely, and she is a pureblood - with her good looks and your intelligence-"

"Lucius," Snape says lowly, in the dangerous tone that makes NEWT students shrink down in their seats. "Please remember that I could easily kill you." Lucius ignores him.

"Why not indulge, Severus? It's different when you have children of your own." Harry stays in his place, trying not to laugh - Snape is a very serious man, and Harry's never imagined him so much as having a heart, let alone having a love life for Lucius Malfoy to interfere in. "You could at least have her over for dinner."

"No," Harry hears Snape say, and Lucius' sigh is audible. "I am leaving."

"You won't at least think about it?"

"I will not," Snape retorts. "I will leave Aurora Sinistra to her tower." Snape sighs, and without being able to see him Harry knows that he's pinching the bridge of his nose. "I am not interested in such things, Lucius."

"But-"

"No," Snape says firmly, and Harry hears the other door open and close as Lucius and Snape leave. He lets himself laugh as he picks out the three or so books he can see with Animagi in their titles, and he's quick about dropping them onto the bed in his room, slipping out again and heading downstairs.

"What are you laughing about?" Hermione asks, and Harry leans towards her, whispering in her ear as he looks at Snape. Hermione laughs too, clapping her hand over her mouth, and Harry watches as Snape narrows his eyes.

"Potter-"

"Sir, can I ask you a question?" Harry interrupts before Snape can ask him anything. "What's Occlumency?"

"Where did you hear of Occlumency, Potter?"

"There are a few books about it in the library," Harry says innocently. Snape's knuckles whiten as he clenches his fists.

"It's a process of mental defence, Potter, against a magic known as Legilimency."

"What's Legilimency?"

"A process by which the attacker draws himself into the mind of his target, in order to understand his thoughts, his memories, and the like." Staring into Snape's furious, black eyes, Harry remembers always feeling like the older man could read minds.

"You think Professor Sinistra knows Legilimency, sir?" Snape scowls at him, and Harry offers his head of house a wide grin. He has no doubt that Snape's going to make his September Hell for this, but it's worth it.

* * *

"Are you seriously buying that many books?" Sirius asks, looking disgustedly from Harry's pile of volumes to Hermione's. Harry and Hermione glance from each other to their respectively modest stacks, and then nod their heads. They'd already picked out their school books for the year in Flourish and Blotts, and now they're perusing the shelves of secondhand books at Dawn's Break, the old shop where Harry had bought his Cleansweep a while back.

"Oh, here's one on Occlumency, Harry," Hermione says, passing it to him, and Harry adds it to his pile while silently handing her Miss Frizzy's Magical Guide To Natural Hair, 1981. Sirius sighs, shaking his head.

"Remus is going to be so proud," he says in a disgusted tone, and Harry laughs, picking up his stack of twenty or so books and bringing them to the counter. Despite his apparent disapproval, Sirius insists on paying for all of Harry and Hermione's books, and they step outside and into Slip's Crescent. Their books have been slipped into an enchanted satchel of Sirius', and with that bit of shopping done they're mostly finished with their school run.

"Sirius," Harry says in a quiet, wheedling tone. Sirius looks at him suspiciously.

"Harry," Sirius replies in an equally slow tone.

"If there was a shop with an ageline, but we were accompanied by an adult, do you think-"

"Oh, no," Sirius says, shaking his head. "I might be the cool godfather, but I'm not taking you into that sex shop on Fargo Alley."

"Oh, come on, we're fourteen, we're nearly adults-"

"We won't even buy anything," Hermione promises. "We just want to look-" Sirius shakes his head firmly, and Hermione and Harry both sigh. "You could maybe get us a catalogue?"

"I'm not going to peddle adult goods to my godson and his friend, Hermione. I'm not that cool. You guys need to go anywhere else?" Harry looks thoughtful. The Weasleys had split away from Sirius, Harry and Hermione, all going in search of the different things they needed, and the Malfoys had done the same: they're not actually scheduled to meet back up with everyone until five o'clock or so.

"Er," Hermione says quietly, with the slightest bit of anxiety in her voice. "If you guys don't mind, I'd like to have a look in Flockhart's Locks."

"What's that?"

"It's a hairdresser's," Harry says, leaning and looking for the sign on Slip's Crescent. Flockhart's Locks is a glass-fronted shop with sleek interiors and a neat, green tile covering its floor. It looks positively futuristic compared to the other shops along the street, and Harry glances to Sirius. "Do you mind?"

"Uh, no," Sirius says, shrugging his shoulders. "You kids go in - I'm gonna go grab Remus, alright?" Harry nods his head, and Sirius grabs his shoulder, looking at him seriously for a second. "Anything happens, Harry, and don't worry about the rules - just start hexing." The adults had all been a little more relaxed once they were all in Diagon Alley, but only Bill had gone into Gringotts, and none of them had been allowed to even go near the bank, at Mrs Weasley and Lucius' respectively stern commands.

Harry nods his head, and he lets Hermione go ahead of him into the shop. Around the room are a series of chairs in front of mirrors, and around several men and women are enchanted scissors, combs, curlers and brushes, teasing, tweaking and trimming the different hairstyles into shape. Harry watches curiously, interested - most of the children in Hogwarts have their hair cut by prefects, or cut it themselves, and Harry only knows of a few girls in the upper years who go to a more focused measures. He knows that Lucius' hair takes some more concentrated attention, and that they take appointments at a hairdresser's quite seriously, but it's never been something of Harry's concern.

His own hair keeps itself at the same length, never really growing past a length he dislikes, and he hasn't seen much reason to mess with it.

"Hello," says a friendly voice, and Harry glances up at the man in front of them. "I'm Joaquin, how can I help you two?" He's much younger than Harry had expected. He can't be that much older than Bill, in his mid-twenties, though his hair is dyed white. He wears rectangular glasses that look to be carved of some sort of bone, and his eyes are a deep, sea green.

"Harry Potter," he says, putting out his hand, and the man beams. Embedded in his right upper canine is a sparkling blue gemstone, and Harry can't help but stare at it as she shakes hands with Flockhart. "This is my friend, Hermione. She wanted to drop in."

"Oh, what beautiful hair!" Flockhart says immediately, shaking her hand excitedly. "I do hope you aren't planning to have it cut - it frames your face perfectly at this length." Hermione gives a little laugh, looking down at the ground, and Harry smiles. She isn't complimented on her looks all that often, Harry knows, but he doesn't think she's bad-looking at all, and he likes to see her smile like this.

"I actually, uh, I wanted to ask about products to straighten it a bit? Not all the time! But, uh, you know. Sometimes." Harry keeps quiet as Flockhart leads them over to a neat little coffee table before a cabinet of products: he goes through a dozen explanations, explaining charms and products, separating them by price and quality. It's not really something Harry's invested in, but he finds it interesting nonetheless - there are cabinets full of products for different kinds of hair, and he can't help but be curious about all the differences.

"And-" Hermione hesitates, her hand over her mouth, and then she says, "Do you do anything for teeth?"

"Teeth?" Flockhart repeats, tilting his head. "You mean like mine?" He points to the sapphire shining on his tooth.

"No, no," Hermione says, shaking her head. "My front teeth, they're a bit more prominent than I'd like. I'd just like a more even smile."

"Oh, of course," Flockhart says, though he seems a little perplexed by the request. "I can do that for you right now!" Harry watches as Hermione sits in one of the salon chairs, and it takes barely any time at all - Flockhart leans in front of her and murmurs a quiet charm, shrinking her two front teeth in line with the others. Hermione looks at herself in the mirror, and she beams.

"Thank you!" she says brightly, and she takes a catalogue for Flockhart's Locks from the counter as she pays. It's only a few Sickles, and Harry stops short as he peers over the counter.

"What other catalogues do you have?" he asks.

"Oh, we just have a fair variety there. People like to peruse while they get their hair done," Flockhart says absent-mindedly, writing Hermione a receipt in flourishing handwriting. Behind Harry, he hears the door chime as Sirius and Remus enter, and he acts quickly, grabbing the purple catalogue at the bottom of the pile and slipping it into his bag.

He'd recognized the name of the shop embossed on its cover: Wizarding Delights: the shop on Fargo Alley.


	64. Year Four: Scarred

"Oh, wow, I like your new teeth, Hermione!" Parvati Patil says as Hermione helps Harry pull his trunk up onto the train, and Hermione gives a little smile, letting go and standing back so that Harry can dip into a compartment and pop it up onto the luggage rack. Hermione's been receiving compliments on her teeth all week back at Grimmauld Place, but it's obvious she's enjoying the positive attention.

"You don't think my parents will be too mad, will you?" Hermione asks, sliding the compartment door shut and letting Crookshanks out of his basket. Hedwig had already begun the flight to Hogwarts by the time Harry had gotten up that morning, so her cage lies empty on the luggage rack above their heads.

"I don't think so," Harry says, shaking his head. "I mean, the other solution was to get braces, right?"

"Yeah," she answers, nodding her head. "They were always opposed to the idea of fixing it magically, but it's just so easy this way, and they look much better."

"I thought they looked fine before," Harry assures her, and by no means is he being untruthful: he hadn't really paid her teeth any heed, really, and although he'd had a vague awareness Hermione didn't love them, he'd never thought they were a big issue. Still, Hermione seems to be happier with them like this. He glances to the door as the Hogwarts Express starts to move, and then he leans forwards slightly. "Look, I didn't tell you back at the house because I didn't want Kreacher to see and tell Lucius," he murmurs, and he reaches up into his trunk, pulling out the catalogue he'd snuck into his bag from Flockhart's Locks.

"What?" Hermione asks, and then she gasps. The catalogue is about fifty parchment pages, bound with string and purple card, and she grabs for it. Harry lets her take it, laughing a little. He'd already looked through it - the catalogue itself isn't all too explicit, but tends to just imply things.

"They must have more than one," Harry says, "because this is all for sex books, lingerie and things like aphrodisiacs. I heard one of the lads talking about ordering some rope from them by mail order, and I know it's not in this catalogue."

"That one's probably a bit too dirty for a hairdresser's," Hermione says, and Harry laughs as she pages through the catalogue. At the back is a mail order form - Wizarding Delights, Harry knows, only takes orders made on its specific form, as usually only of age wizards and witches can get hold of one of their catalogues. "If we ordered something, though, we could probably get one of them." Harry and Hermione share a look, and then erupt into laughter.

It feels so ridiculous, having a catalogue full of pornographic booklets, enchanted posters, sex manuals and the like to peruse - but that isn't the least of it. "I've got a plan." Hermione glances up at him, tilting her head as she looks up from the manual. "We're going to need to work with Fred and George, but I think we'll be able to make a bit of money."

Hermione hesitates. She's normally opposed to anything that involves taking money from other students - Fred and George have been working on different creations over the summer, apparently intent on selling a few of them, and she'd expressed some disapproval, but even though she doesn't care for the profit, she normally enjoys the excitement of the plot. "Go on."

Harry grins at her.

* * *

"Here, let me help you, Colin," Harry says, shaking his head. Dennis, Creevey's little brother, is proving utterly useless, and Harry isn't entirely surprised by that. The little Gryffindor has managed to pin himself under his own trunk's weight while pulling it into his lap, and Harry pulls it off him.

"Oh, thank you, Harry! Thank-"

"Shut up," Harry says, and then adds, "Get one of the older kids in your house to cast a featherlight charm on it, okay?" He shakes his head, glancing around for one of the Slytherins in his year, but as he pulls himself out of the Creeveys' compartment, he staggers, clutching at his head. There's a sudden deep, burning pain that digs right into his skull, and he feels himself cry out, but he doesn't really hear it.

He goes faint for a few seconds, and when he blinks himself into seeing, Francis Drummond's hands are on his forearm, holding him up. He lets the seventh year support him onto the platform, and he lets out a quiet groan as a little more pain sings hotly through his forehead: it feels like it's coming from his scar of all things, and he has to grit his teeth to keep from screaming as the pain digs deep.

It passes as suddenly as it had started, and Harry sways a little on his feet, clutching absently at his forehead and wondering what the Hell just happened.

"You alright?" Francis asks, and Harry gives an awkward nod.

"Yeah, er, I think so. I don't know what that was - just a sudden headache, I think."

"You eat a lot of sweets on the train?" Francis asks.

"Uh, a few, I guess?"

"Probably that," Francis says lowly, patting Harry's back. "You going to be alright to walk to the carriages, Harry?"

"Yeah, Francis, I'll be fine, I think." He watches as Francis walks over, catching a few seventh year girls and walking with them towards the carriages. Harry waves to Blaise and Draco, going with them towards one of the nothing-drawn carriages and pulling himself up into it. He rubs absently at his forehead, checking his fingers for blood, but there is none.

"What was all that about?" Blaise asks, and Harry shrugs his shoulders.

"Not sure," he answers. "Francis thinks it's from too much sugar." Draco and Blaise share a glance, seeming to think this is as good an explanation as any, and Harry sighs, leaning back in his seat to look out of the window. He'll make sure to drink a good deal of water at dinner, and hopefully that'll sort out his head.

* * *

"The Hogwarts Quidditch tournament will not be running this year." Beside him, Harry hears Draco groan, but he cranes his neck to try and get a good look at the Gryffindor table on the other side of the Great Hall - Ron and Ginny look positively dejected, and the chasers of the team - Alicia, Angelina and Katie - each look similarly disappointed. "Instead," Dumbledore says, "We will play host to the Triwizard Tournament." There are gasps of surprise around the room, and Harry glances at Draco, watching the excitement show on his features.

"You knew!" he accuses Harry immediately, shoving him in the side when he sees Harry's amused expression, and Harry laughs, not denying it. Sat at the table are a pudgy gentleman Harry vaguely recognizes as Ludo Bagman, and beside him Percy Weasley. Listening carefully to what Percy is murmuring to her is Amelia Bones, and Harry realizes with a sort of sick immediacy that she must be the new head of Magical Law Enforcement. At the very least, Percy isn't out of a job.

He zones out as Dumbledore explains about the Triwizard Tournament's new rules. Bill had already explained to Harry and Hermione that they were introducing a rule allowing only students of age to participate, and it had made a lot of sense to Harry: given the deadly nature of the Triwizard's usual tasks, putting forwards the name of a second year wouldn't exactly be fair.

He claps when Dumbledore introduces Cecilia as that year's Defence teacher, but despite himself he can't help but wonder what Remus is supposed to do in the meantime - Harry knows it must be hard for him to find employment, and with the danger abounding at the moment, he'd rather Remus was in Hogwarts with them than somewhere else. He thinks about Remus as he walks down to the common room that evening with the other Slytherins - everyone is talking rapidly and excitedly about the current Tournament, but Harry couldn't care less about it.

He's got a lot in his plate this year, with approaching his Animagus transformation and his studies, as well as devoting a little time to Occlumency and his scheme with Wizarding Delights. By no means is he going to waste any time worrying about the Triwizard Tournament.

* * *

 _He hears the clap and spatter of waves hitting the cliffside beneath them, and he looks around. His vision fails him, and he can barely see more than a few feet before the grey and black of the village and the sky merge together in blurs._

 _The bite of the chilly wind at Dover makes him shiver and huddle in the thick robe he's wrapped in: he has not felt such vulnerability, such weakness, for decades upon end, and it makes him angry. "Did I or did I not, Bella, order haste?" he snaps. She apologizes profusely, holding him that more tightly to her mercifully warm breast, and he feels the sensation of Apparition._

 _Malfoy Manor is as he remembered it years ago, when Abraxas first invited him: oh, how the light had shone from the moon that evening, illuminating the garden. He remembers clearly how Lucius, barely more than a babe in arms, had tottered in the garden after one of his beloved birds - how long ago it had been. He had killed the bird: the whisper of the Killing Curse had been a matter of ease, and oh, how the young boy's eyes had so swiftly filled with tears._

 _He tightens one of his too-weak fists as Bellatrix carries him into the Manor they have taken for their own. He will ensure the worthless slip of a Malfoy will pay for his disloyalty: he will kill the man just as he had that pheasant._

 _"Come, Bella," he orders. "To the drawing room: we have much to plan."_

* * *

Harry wakes up in a cold sweat, feeling himself retch as he pulls himself out of bed: he's shaking with cold despite the pleasant warmth of his and Draco's dormitory, and he bends over, grasping at one of the posts of his bed as he steadies himself. Draco is fast asleep, buried under his blankets, and Harry sees the clock above his bed declares it to be coming up to four in the morning.

He swallows hard, stopping himself from retching again, as he considers what he'd just felt. It hadn't seemed like a dream, not at all - it had felt so real, and he had felt so weak, so strange, so... Not himself.

Barefoot and in sweat-soaked pyjamas, he coughs as he makes his way into the common room. Asleep in a little ball in one of the armchairs is a first year still in his uniform, and Harry taps his knee, gently coaxing him awake. The kid stares up at Harry, and Harry says, "You're Arden Tsui, right? Go to bed." The little first year drags himself up, rushing down the corridor, and Harry shakes his head as he slips into the corridor. He considers going to Snape, initially, but Snape is in a bad mood at any time of the day, and while he trusts his head of house implicitly he doesn't see the point in telling him this.

If it isn't important, Dumbledore will tell him so and send him back to bed. If it is, Dumbledore can tell all the right people directly.

The dungeon floors bite at his feet as he makes his way up to the entrance hall, and then begins to climb the stairs. The castle is eerily quiet, and the only people wandering the halls are the house ghosts, who peer curiously at Harry but apparently aren't interested in talking to him.

"Ooh, ickle Harry Potty!" Peeves cries with delight. "What-"

"What's the password to Dumbledore's office, Peeves?" Harry asks shortly. Peeves peers down at him with his big, ugly eyes, swaying in the air and seeming surprised by the question.

"I don't have to answer you, ickle Harry!" Peeves decides, and Harry pulls his wand out of his pocket, looking at Peeves with a grim expression on his face.

"You don't have to, Peeves," Harry replies. He doesn't feel bad about threatening the poltergeist - Peeves is a twat at the best of times, and Harry isn't interested in his stupidity. He's exhausted, and he's irritated, and he just wants to tell Dumbledore right now that Voldemort is back in the country. Or- maybe. Maybe he is, maybe he isn't. "But you're going to be in a few more parts than one if you don't help me right now."

Peeves lets out a shriek, rushing off in the direction of Dumbledore's office, but by the time Harry gets to the gargoyle Peeves is nowhere in sight, and Harry sighs. The cool stone underneath him bites at his bare feet, and he wishes he'd put on slippers before he'd come this way. Besides, he didn't think this through - he has no way to-

With a quiet grind of stone, the gargoyle shifts to the side, allowing Harry to the stairwell, and he stares at it for a second. He frowns suspiciously at the stone monster, but the gargoyle remains utterly still - it can't be alive, can it? It can't have known he was here? Shaking his head, Harry rubs at his dry eyes and begins to walk up the stairs, his feet padding quietly on the stone.

Dumbledore's office is already warm, and Harry sees that he has a fire crackling away, but the headmaster had been asleep, Harry is fairly certain: he's wearing a long, star-decorated nightshirt and a matching hat, complete with silver tassel. "Mr Potter," Dumbledore says quietly, peering down at him from behind his glasses. "How might I help you at this hour?"

"I had a nightmare," Harry says. "And I think it's important."

* * *

Harry finishes speaking as soon as he says, "So I came to see you." The room is beautifully toasty now, and he can't help but bask somewhat in the wonderful heat, leaning back into the padded chair before Dumbledore's desk. Dumbledore frowns, looking very thoughtful: Harry had done his best to include every detail he recalled of the dream, and of Voldemort, and he thinks he's included everything.

"You took ill this evening, did you not, Mr Potter?" Dumbledore asks, his eyes focusing on Harry's, and Harry, for a reason he can't quite fathom, recalls Snape's words in Grimmauld Place: _Occlumency is a process of mental defence against a magic called Legilimency_. He looks away.

"Yes, Professor, I did," Harry says, reaching up to ruffle his hair as if he'd turned his gaze away to scratch an itch. "Had a splitting headache as I stepped off the train." He feels like an idiot for not having connected it before - he dimly recalls the pain in his scar in first year when Quirrell got too close to him, and he says, "It must have started hurting when Voldemort came closer." Dumbledore is watching him carefully, his blue gaze almost piercing, and Harry traces the lightning bolt shape of his scar under his thumb.

Dumbledore reaches for a few pieces of parchment, writing down a rapid set of notes in his neat, looping handwriting, and he passes them all to Fawkes, who disappears with an immediate squawk and a burst of sparks. Harry watches as he begins to write a few more, and then he asks, "Is there any way I can stop this?"

Dumbledore pauses, glancing at Harry once more.

"It's just- this isn't like Quirrell being in the corridor, Professor. Malfoy Manor is in England, for Merlin's sake - it's miles away. I don't want to feel what he feels."

"For the time being," Dumbledore murmurs, looking at Harry seriously, "I think it best we bide our time. We must better comprehend the connection between you and Lord Voldemort before we can attempt to sever it." Harry shifts his jaw: it's not the answer he wanted, but nor is it an answer that seems unwarranted or untruthful, so he nods his head, pulling himself up.

"Sorry for waking you up," Harry says. "I'm gonna head back down to the dungeons."

"By all means, Mr Potter," Dumbledore assures him: there's no twinkle-eyed lightness in his face, nor his grandfatherly humour. "If you have even the slightest suspicion of Lord Voldemort's actions, feel free to come to me, Minerva or Severus immediately." Harry nods his head, making his way to the exit of the headmaster's office, and then he turns back, watching the old man.

"Do you think he'll come here? During the tournament?"

"I cannot say," Dumbledore says, which isn't actually an answer. Harry nods his head, slowly, and leaves the room.


	65. Year Four: Blaise Zabini

"You wanted to talk business?" George asks, shutting the door behind him and Fred as the two of them enter the room, and Harry and Hermione share a glance before they meet the twins' gaze.

"We're offering our services and our help to you, as members joining your little company." Harry says, arching his eyebrows. He's tired, and he's fairly certain it's showed in the courses of his classes today, but he's alert enough to make his proposal to the Weasley twins. The both of them are watching him and Hermione with obvious intrigue. "This is a chance to expand your operation a bit, as well as to make a little extra. Besides, there'll be a lot of benefits to having me and Hermione involved."

"Weasley's Wizard Wheezes," Fred says with a flourish, obviously enjoying the name of his and George's business, "is a family-owned enterprise, Harry. Why ever should we involve you two?"

"Well, my personal business plans aside," Harry says, "with me you'll get a direct route to sales within Slytherin house. You two are bastards to most of the other snakes, but I'm one of them. That'll add an extra quarter to your customer base. And you'll be able to get access to Parseltongue-locked rooms to hide your goods or work in."

"Plus," Hermione says cleanly, "You'll have me and Harry on your side if you need to take anything more questionable or suspicious out of the library."

The four of them are in an empty classroom on the second floor, but Harry's fairly certain they won't be disturbed for the time being. He watches as Fred and George each look pensive, sharing looks and communicating everything with microexpressions, or so it seems.

And then George asks, "What personal business plans?"

"I'm so glad you asked," Harry says. From her satchel, Hermione produces the catalogue for Wizarding Delights. Fred and George stare at it, obviously surprised and impressed. "Given that owl orders to Wizarding Delights can only be made from a particular form issued by the store or found in one of their catalogues..."

"We can order goods and sell them on in the school with an uptick," Fred says, grinning a little. "Very simple, but effective. Why don't you just do this yourself? Why do you want to join me and George?"

"Working as a unit will benefit us," Harry says. "I can bring access in the school to the table, but I couldn't order stuff from here in my name - they'll know how old I am. I kinda need your help with this."

"Weasley's Wizard Wheezes is still going to be yours," Hermione says, and she draws out a piece of parchment, setting it down on the table. The contract isn't magically binding or somehow enchanted, but Hermione had spent a fair bit of time putting it together last night, and Harry likes the way she's crafted it. "Harry and I will just be like investors. We'll add to your capital and help you out - and we'll only take shares of the profit from the stuff we've brought to the table, like the catalogue." George laughs a little as he looks over the contract, taking it in.

"I like your terms," he says, nodding his head slowly. His expression is appraising as he looks at Hermione, and then he says, "Fred?"

"I think the two of you are sneaky, sorry little monsters," Fred says. "I'd be ecstatic to invite you to the team." He puts his hand out to shake, and Harry takes it, grinning. Within a half hour more, each of them has their own copy of the contract with all of their signatures written at its bottom, and Harry feels an immense satisfaction. Even with the worry of Voldemort on his mind, something's going right so far this year, and he and Hermione nudge each other as they walk out into the courtyard.

"Well, that's one thing down this year."

"Of course," Hermione says dryly. "Now you just have to become an expert in two extremely rare, difficult fields of magic."

"I don't want to become an expert," Harry mutters, shaking his head. "I just want to become an Animagus. And the Occlumency is just a- it's a hobby, an interest. I probably won't even be able to do any of it." Hermione laughs, shaking her head, and she puts her hands in the pockets of her robes as they walk to sit by the fountain. It's a little chilly outside, and the air is bracing, but it's not unbearable. "Aren't you picking up anything this year? You could put your name forwards for the Triwizard Tournament."

"I'm not seventeen," Hermione points out.

"There are ways around stuff like that. Bet you three Galleons you can't get your name in the cup."

"No," Hermione says, shaking her head. "No, it's not happening." She leans forwards as Cho Chang comes up the hillside. Two of the girls are also on the Ravenclaw Quidditch team, Harry thinks, and the others he doesn't know - in all truth, the only one he cares about is Cho. She's grown a little taller, but Harry's thankfully grown a little more too, and they're about the same height: the skirt of her robes is right up to her calves, and she has ribbons in little bows sewn into the hems of them. A matching blue ribbon shimmers in her hair, and he feels his breath catch slightly.

"Hey, Cho," Harry says, and she turns away from her friends. All of them peer at him with owlish expressions on their faces, and Harry feels his face go hot, but he forces the grin to stay on his face. "You look really pretty today," he manages to say. "I love your hair." The Ravenlaws all titter, sharing looks, but Cho just beams widely. She's even prettier when she smiles.

"Thanks, Harry," Cho says, a little awkwardly, and she starts to walk off with the other Ravenclaws again. Harry watches them, and he glances at Hermione when he feels her gaze on the back of his head.

"What?" he asks, and Hermione shakes her head.

"Nothing, nothing. You've just managed to be a bit smooth, that's all. It's surprising." Harry scoffs. And then Hermione says, "You do know she's dating Cedric Diggory, right?" Harry thinks of Cedric Diggory, the blond, princely Hufflepuff with bright blue eyes and a jaw that looks like it's been carved of diamond. He's the perfect companion for a girl that looks like she could be the next model on the over of Witch Weekly, and Harry feels like an utter idiot.

"You couldn't have told me that before I told her she was pretty?"

"I didn't know you were going to!" Hermione says, and Harry sighs, crossing his arms over his chest and leaning back against the stone lion behind him. "You can always ask her out if they break up," she offers insincerely.

"Are you going to ask anyone out this year?" Harry retorts. Hermione tosses her hair.

"I might do. It's none of your business, Harry Potter."

"Of course it is," he says. "I'm going to be the godfather of all your children." Hermione laughs outright, throwing back her head, and he does his best to look mock-offended, but he doesn't quite manage it: he's laughing too, and they settle together in comfortable silence for a while. "Really, though. Are you?"

"I don't know," she says. "Maybe."

"Let me guess... Vincent Crabbe?" Hermione shoves him, and Harry sniggers.

"I haven't got anyone particular in mind," she says, shrugging her shoulders. "Unlike you, I don't want to snog anything that moves." Harry sighs, looking back to the entrance hall's doors - he thinks of snogging Cho Chang in a corridor, feeling her silk-smooth hair through his fingers as he cups her face. Yeah, he doesn't think he can compete with Cedric for her - or, for that matter, compete with Cho for him.

* * *

"Ah, she's back," Blaise says as he enters Harry and Draco's room that evening. Harry peers out of the curtains of his bedframe to look at him, and he smiles. Blaise waves, and Lixie Pott gives a flirtatious curtsy from her place on Harry's wall, pinned above his bedside table. "How I've missed her." Harry grins, shifting over a bit on his bed so that Blaise can sit next to him - Draco is out in the common room, playing an increasingly heated game of chess against Daphne Greengrass, and he'd settled on his bed to read for a little while.

Blaise pushes the curtain absently closed behind him: a little light filters into the square of comfortable silence, but most of the light is from a candle. Harry had finally figured out the right command to make the snake-shaped candleholder the Malfoys' had sent him in his first year shift its position, and it coils around one of the bed's posts, holding the candle aloft and lighting up his bed.

"This is cosy," Blaise says, sprawling beside him. Harry is already wearing his pyjamas, despite it not even being nine yet: he sits on top of his covers with a few books spread around him, and from a few different texts he's making notes on the initial practices of Occlumency. Blaise, although he's barefoot, is still wearing his robes, and Harry doubts he'll get ready for bed for hours yet.

"It is, isn't it?" Harry agrees, dropping his quill aside and leaning back against his pillows. "It's quite nice in here, without Draco snoring next to me." Blaise chuckles, showing off his teeth. He and his mother had spent the summer in Florence, so he'd said, and he's let his hair grow slightly - usually shaved right to his head, it's almost three inches long now, and the look suits him. Harry has no doubt he'll cut it all off soon: Blaise constantly despairs the other Slytherin boys' heavy use of shampoo.

"I heard you tried flirting with Cho Chang," Blaise purrs, and Harry groans, rubbing at his face. "A girl happily in a relationship, and you sow the seeds of discord."

"D'you think I should apologize?" Harry asks. "I didn't realize her and Diggory were together. I didn't actually ask her out, after all - I just told her she looked good, which was true." Harry pushes his books aside, mimicking Blaise's position and lying on his side across from the other boy. There's only a little space between them, but it doesn't matter: Blaise is freer with physical affection and close proximity than the other Slytherins, and Harry doesn't have to worry about propriety with him.

"I think she'll survive," Blaise says, and Harry glances at him. He examines Blaise's face, his deep brown eyes, the cupid's bow of his mouth, the broadness of his nose. "You have your sights set on anyone else?" It's asked with a sort of intensity, and Harry meets Blaise's gaze properly. Blaise's lips are parted, and he's close enough that Harry can smell the sweetness of his cologne.

"Nah," Harry says. His mouth suddenly feels a little dry. He doesn't think about Cho Chang in the corridor, now - he thinks of Blaize Zabini, feeling the short, thick fuzz of his hair under Harry's hand. "Nah, not really."

"Good," Blaise murmurs, leaning a little closer. "You'll be free to study with me, then. If I need it."

"Oh, yeah," Harry replies, utterly frozen in his place: he's unable to move as Blaise slips closer, and all he can do is close his eyes as Blaise's mouth presses against his. Blaise's lips are warm and slightly wet, and Harry leans into the kiss, feeling the quiet smack of their mouths against each other, the lingering taste of liquorice on Blaise's tongue, the scent of Blaise's cologne now even stronger: it feels amazing, and Harry suddenly feels too-hot with clammy hands and knees he had to press as tightly together as possible.

His heart is racing as Blaise comes a little closer, and he lets out a short, gasping noise when their tongues brush against each other, pulling him in by the front of his robes-

He hears the other bed creak as Draco throws himself onto it, and he hears the double thwack of Draco's boots hitting the floor. Blaise goes utterly still, and so does Harry, his hands still fisted in the other boy's robe.

"You awake, Harry?" Draco asks. Harry lets go of Blaise, grabbing at a book, and theyboth sit up, brushing themselves off slightly before Blaise pushes open the curtain. "Oh, hallo, Blaise."

"I'm just showing him some of the passages in one of my Occlumency books," Harry says, hyperaware of the slight huskiness to his voice that he can't quite push away, the blush on his cheeks, the new plumpness to his lips, but Draco is utterly oblivious.

"Oh," Draco says disinterestedly, and he goes in search of his pyjamas. Harry and Blaise share a glance, and Harry doesn't know how to communicate everything he feels - that he wants Blaise to kiss him again, that he's terrified Blaise will kiss him again, that he wants to know what cologne he uses...

He doesn't say anything, because Draco will hear. He just says, "Uh, good night, mate."

"Night, Harry, Draco," Blaise says smoothly, and he leaves the room in a sweep of casual movement. Harry pushes the curtain closed, lying down on his side again, and he reaches up to his mouth, touching his lips with the tips of his fingers. It hadn't been anything like kissing Hermione - it had felt like something more than just touching mouths. It had felt like everything.

Swallowing, he lies back, and forces his overexcited mind to recall the wand movement for the Dead Arm Charm.


	66. Year Four: Hogwarts Visitors

Harry's feet dangle from the edge of the Astronomy Tower, watching as workers in the startlingly yellow robes of the Department of Magical Games and Sports rush back and forth, casting spells. The Quidditch pitch's grass has been covered over with a brown, dirt floor, and the six hoops lie on their sides in a pile beside the pitch. They're currently expanding the stands around the pitch to create an arena of sorts, and Harry doesn't envy the Triwizard competitors that are going to be in the middle.

"It looks like a wooden version of the Colosseum," Hermione murmurs, and Harry nods his head in agreement. The sun is shining, and it's surprisingly warm for a Scottish September: they'd elected to creep up to the Astronomy Tower to watch the proceedings, so that they'd be out of the way of any of the other students. Harry can see a few Ravenclaws have had a similar idea, because six of them are perched like birds on the roof of their tower, and he can see various students on balconies or hanging out of windows in the parts of the castle below them.

"Yeah," Harry agrees, swinging his legs a little. "You think they'll have to face lions?"

"If they're lucky," Hermione says grimly. She leans on the wall beside him, peering over - he hadn't managed to coax her into actually sitting on its edge, but she'll come around eventually. They've been out here for twenty minutes or so - they've finished with their classes for the day, and Dumbledore had said at breakfast that the contingents from Beauxbatons and Durmstrang would be arriving today. Everyone in the school that isn't hanging from a parapet is out on the grass of the grounds, pretending not to be excited. "Doesn't it seem barbaric to you?"

"A little," Harry admits, leaning back slightly. "But at least they're seventeen, now, the champions. I've read those stories about twelve and thirteen year olds getting killed while representing their school." Hermione twists her mouth, looking concerned nonetheless. Harry's heard different kids talking about ways to get their names into the Goblet of Fire despite the age limit, but Harry expects there'll be an ageline or a member of staff guarding it or something. "Would you sign up? If you were seventeen?"

"I don't think so," Hermione says, watching as Ludo Bagman yells indistinctly at a member of his staff. "Two thousand Galleons is a lot of money, but I don't know if it's worth my life. Even though they're going to try and ensure no one dies, there's a big element of risk, don't you think?"

"There's an element of risk in everything," Harry says noncommittally. He's been thinking about it every night, the Triwizard Tournament - would he participate, if he could? And despite the risk, the danger, he thinks that he would. It must be exciting, to be in that arena, facing some monster or performing a child, and he entertains idle fantasies of being the winner of the Triwizard Tournament, holding up the cup and being the talk of Britain for it.

He never did anything to be the Boy Who Lived, and it would feel so good for a title to be something he'd earned, but...

"I'm kind of glad I don't have the option," Harry mutters. "Either way, I feel like I'd make the wrong decision - decide not to bother, and miss an opportunity, or put my name in and get killed in the first task." Hermione snorts.

"Yeah, I get what you mean." They're silent for a little while, listening only to the whistling breeze that comes through the Astronomy Tower's huge pieces of equipment. Harry feels Hermione look at him for a few moments, and then she asks, "What are you going to do with Blaise?" He'd told her about the kiss the morning after it had happened, in desperately quiet words at the breakfast table, and she'd not mentioned it to him since. It's been several days, though, and she's given him enough a time - at least, in her mind, Harry expects.

"I'm not sure," Harry answers. It's true. He and Blaise had been acting as normal as possible at the dinner table and in the common room, but they'd not had any time alone together since. He doesn't know what he's supposed to do - had he kissed Cho, or Katie Bell, or Daphne Greengrass, or another pretty girl, it wouldn't be a problem, but Blaise is a bloke, and he knows how wizards respond to two blokes kissing. "I sort of want to tell him to never touch me again. I also kind of want him to drag me into a broom cupboard for an hour or so."

"Harry!" Hermione scolds, and Harry gives her a grin. "Don't you think we're a bit young for that?"

"I wasn't suggesting he bugger me, Hermione," Harry argues, and he's about to go on when there's an odd, low horn from the lake. Harry and Hermione turn their heads just in time to see a dark mast begin to slowly rise from beneath the lake's surface.

* * *

Harry and Hermione make their way over the grass - the twenty four Beauxbatons students are all in little groups, chattering away together in mostly French. Harry hears a little of what he thinks is German, and another language he isn't really familiar with at all, but for the most part it's French. Down by the lake, a few of the Slytherins have gathered to try and get a good look at the Durmstrang lot, but none of the students have stepped off the ship.

"Hi," Harry says, and the gigantic woman who'd been yelling orders at Hagrid a second ago turns around and peers down at him. "Harry Potter, Madame Maxime. It's great to meet you."

"Oh!" Maxime says, beaming, and she shakes Harry's hand with hers - Harry didn't know it was possible, but she's even bigger than Hagrid is, he's certain. He'd only written her a while back with a small note about the difference between Hogwarts and the other schools, and she'd actually replied to him - Karkaroff hadn't deigned to. "A pleasure to meet you, 'Arry. And who is your friend?"

"This is my friend," Harry says, letting Hermione put out her hand. "She's the best witch in my year, but don't worry - we're too young to give your students any extra competition." Madam Maxime lets out a laugh that is probably supposed to be a titter, but sounds more like a noise an amused elephant might make.

"Enchantée, Madame Maxime," Hermione says, "Je m'appelle Hermione - j'aime beaucoup votre, er- carriage?" Maxime laughs again, patting Hermione's hand, and she smiles at the Beauxbatons students, who each share a little laughter, but it doesn't seem all that mean-spirited.

"C'est une calèche, Ms Granger," Maxime corrects, and while it's definitely a bit snobbish, her tone isn't nasty.

"Sorry," she says. "I only learned French at primary school. I've sort of neglected it since coming to Hogwarts."

"Ah!" Maxime claps her hands together. "By all means, Ms Granger, you must chat with our students. Fleur, Coralie, come here-" Coralie is a tanned, pretty girl with a silver ring through the side of her nose, but she doesn't compare to Fleur. Fleur is a tall girl with porcelain-white skin and shimmering blue eyes; her hair is a delicate silver-blonde that curls around her shoulders, and her face is impossibly beautiful. Harry feels himself struck dumb as the two girls introduce themselves to Hermione, and when Fleur turns to Harry, he shoves his hand out in an almost mechanical fashion.

"God," Harry says. "If you're as good a witch as you are beautiful, we don't stand a chance." Fleur laughs, and Harry feels like he's heard something not fit for human ears - it's like a peal of bells, and he feels the warmth of her hand in his.

"No," she agrees. "You do not."

* * *

"She's a part-Veela," Draco explains when Harry sits, dazed, at the Slytherin table later on that evening. Durmstrang students settle with the upper years further up the table, and Harry spared a glance to Viktor Krum, but hadn't otherwise gotten a good look at them yet. He and Hermione had talked with the Beauxbatons students for a while: it seemed like their students were from all over Europe, but all of them had a much better grasp of English than Harry and Hermione had of any of theirs. After a few minutes, Harry had been better able to focus on the conversation rather than just on Fleur, but he still feels a little out of it.

"Is that what it is?" Harry asks, rubbing the back of his flushed-red neck. "Bloody Hell. What does seeing a full Veela feel like?" Theo snorts, clapping Harry on the back, and Harry turns his head slightly, meeting Blaise's eyes. Blaise seems a little surprised by Harry's glance his way, but Harry just smiles at him, and appreciates it when Blaise smiles back.

The students from Durmstrang and Beauxbatons are introduced, and Harry glances up to the table: Madam Maxime and Headmaster Karkaroff are sat up with Dumbledore at the table, and Harry listens with as Dumbledore proclaims that the Goblet of Fire will be revealed on October 1st.

The contingents usually come later in the year, apparently, but some Hogwarts staff had offered tutelage to the foreign students as well as that offered by their respective heads, and thus they'd come earlier. It's exciting, Harry thinks - even though all the students are a few years above them, the Beauxbatons ones seem really interesting. Those from Durmstrang? Harry isn't so certain.

All of them seem sour-faced, and he's heard that they study the Dark Arts at Durmstrang: he'll see how they come off in the next few weeks.

Harry puts his hands in his robe pockets as he traipses down to the Slytherin common room after dinner: he thinks he might have an early night tonight. He might just put one of his records and read for a little, he corrects himself. Putting himself to bed at not-even-nine o'clock is a bit too far, even for him.

"Oi!" he hears Blaise behind him, but as soon as he turns Blaise is pulling him into the darkness of a broom cupboard, and Harry shivers as a candle to the side of the room reluctantly draws itself into light. Ignoring the sweeps and cleaning supplies to the side of the room, Harry focuses on the other Slytherin boy, feeling his heart begin to race. "Hey."

"Hey," Harry says, quietly, against Blaise's mouth. "What cologne are you wearing?" Blaise laughs, his breath warm against Harry's lips.

"What sort of question is that?" he asks, his hands slipping forwards, and Harry leans into it when Blaise's hands brush his hips through the fabric of his robes. "It's called Del Rio. You like it?"

"Yeah," Harry admits, letting himself inhale as he closes his eyes, his lips brushing Blaise's. "Yeah. We're in a broom cupboard, huh?"

"That's right."

"Tight, enclosed space. Just us and some bleach."

"You've got it."

"I suppose I can guess what we're going to do, then."

"Can you, indeed?"

"Scrub a few floors?" Blaise laughs, the sound low and dark, and he turns away from Harry, blowing out the candle with a quiet hiss.

"Sure, Harry," Blaise murmurs against his mouth, and Harry feels himself quiver a little when he feels the other boy drops to his knees. "Scrubbing floors is precisely what we're doing."

* * *

"Drink some water," Blaise suggests, and Harry coughs a little as he takes the glass Blaise Conjures, drinking from it. They sit against the door of the broom cupboard in the dark, both of them a little ruffled but otherwise quite comfortable, and Harry lets himself lean on Blaise's shoulder. The other boy is warm, and the feel of his body beside Harry's is a surprising comfort. "Too big?"

"Oh, shut up," Harry says as Blaise laughs, and he shoves the other boy in the side. He swills the water in his mouth before he swallows again, rinsing his tongue of any lingering taste, and then he asks, "Are you gay?"

"Gay?" Blaise repeats. "Oh. You explained last year." Blaise is quiet for a few moments, apparently considering the question. Harry wishes the light was on so he could see whether the other boy is taking the question seriously or not, but then he answers, "Yes, I suppose so. Girls hold no draw for me."

"But I do?"

"Well, barely," Blaise says. "But one has to take what's available." Harry sniggers, passing Blaise the glass, and he listens to Blaise drink a little. "None of the other boys are in Slytherin. Just you and me." Harry breathes in, slowly, listening to Blaise's voice fill the small space. "The Gryffindors, too - Thomas is like you, I think, but Finnegan is like me."

"Why's it such a problem?" Harry asks in a whisper. He feels stupid for asking the question, but despite the distaste of the Dursleys he's heard gay people on the radio or on television. Hell, he's got an Elton John record in his collection, and he's fairly certain that Prince isn't straight.

"It just is, Harry," Blaise answers simply. "It just is." Harry hears him set the glass down, and when Blaise stands he does too, stepping out of the cupboard. They run quickly down the corridor and sneak into the common room, and for the rest of the night Blaise plays cards with the other boys.

Harry returns to the dormitory, fingering the spines of his Occlumency books before pulling them out and setting them down on the bed. He flicks through the records in his trunk, and then pulls out one, putting it under his turntable's needle. Cold as Christmas begins to play, and he sits on the bed, peering at his Occlumency book before closing his eyes and doing his best to clear his mind.

It's hard, but he's making his progress. He thinks he is, at least.

Like with everything else, he just needs time.

 **A/N: Hey, updates have been coming pretty regularly the past few weeks, so I just wanted to warn you that I'm going on holiday for a week. I'm going to be writing, but access to the Internet is uncertain, and either way I won't be posting any updates until after I return. Anything I do write will be posted up in one go, though.**


	67. Year Four: Hogsmeade

He is calm. He is utterly and completely calm. Heartbeat a quiet, background rhythm, he breathes in, and then out. Everything is an all-encompassing black, and the black continues on, and on. Sounds around him are distant, removed from Harry in his oasis of dark silence, and the next time he breathes in he tries to feel inside himself.

He feels a twinge of-

Something.

It's like a sudden breeze in the distance, or a whistle on the air, or a disturbance in the blackness around him: it's all of those things at once, and the excitement of feeling something makes excitement run through him, but he does his best to keep concentrating.

If he can just follow that feeling, get himself to feel it again-

There's a loud snap an inch from his nose, and Harry flinches back, glaring up at Snape, who merely arches an eyebrow.

"No meditation at the breakfast table, Potter," he says cleanly, seeming amused, and then he walks off to the staff table. Harry scowls, but Hermione comes into the room soon after, and she settles beside him at the Gryffindor table.

"What's put that look on your face?"

"I felt something," Harry begins.

"I can see why that would upset you."

"Shut up!" Hermione laughs. Her hair is constrained by a hair-tie at the back of her neck, but it looks like it might succumb to the sheer strength of Hermione's hair at any moment and snap. "I felt something. Here." He pats his sternum. "I was meditating, and, you know, for the Animagus transformation?" Hermione's expression becomes more curious, and she leans forwards. "Snape brought me out of it. No meditation at the breakfast table, Potter," Harry says in a passable impression of Snape's low tones, and Hermione laughs, reaching for some butter to spread on her toast.

The mid-October sky above them isn't sunny, but it's clear, and there isn't any sign of rain: there's a Hogsmeade trip today, and people are beginning to rapidly filter into the great hall for breakfast: Harry can see the Beauxbatons and Durmstrang students are also filtering in from outside. Over the past month or so, it's been interesting having them around - some of them sit in with the NEWT students in their classes, but for the most part they have a few teachers giving them their own lessons. Harry knows Cecilia is teaching them some History of Magic as well as Defence, and Vector has been giving them a few lessons too.

They're lucky to have Cecilia as a teacher, he thinks: she has a way of explaining concepts that make them spectacularly easy to diagram, and Harry's notes for Defence are better than they've ever been. More importantly, she's actually really good at displaying the practical, and although he wouldn't rave about her teaching (decent as she is, she still doesn't compare to Remus), he's really glad to have her for the year.

Who knows what weirdo they could have ended up with if she hadn't joined the staff?

"Ah, it would seem the majority of you are here," Dumbledore says, interrupting Harry's train of thought, and he looks up to the top table. Dumbledore has a series of small ribbons braided into his beard, apparently to complement his robes, and the look is singularly distracting, but Harry does his best to listen to the man instead of just staring at his facial hair. "For the Hogsmeade trip today, please exercise caution. Various members of staff will be posted around the village, but do remember, children, that there are a number of prisoners from Azkaban still loose."

Harry frowns slightly, and Hermione chews pensively on a mouthful of toast before saying, "Do you think there'll be Order members too?"

"Probably," Harry murmurs. "Sirius said he'd come meet me, but that might be for protection, I suppose. You sure you're alright with me abandoning you?"

"I'm not a stray dog, Harry," Hermione says, making him grin at her. "The twins and I are going to pick up some different mail order forms, have a look at their formats and stuff. They've already started selling some of the stuff for their Skiving Snackboxes, but most of it needs refining." Harry nods his head, sipping at his drink.

"You think we'll be ready to start with the mail order from Wizarding Delights next month?"

"I think so," Hermione says, giving a nod of her head. "George said that it'll probably be better to offer after we sort out a customer base, and I think he's probably right." Harry laughs, turning his head away, and she furrows her eyebrows. "What?"

"Nothing, nothing," Harry says, "it's just that somehow when you say these things you make it sound like it's a real, proper business."

"It is a real, proper business." Harry leans back in his seat, watching the other Slytherins together. Daphne Greengrass and Pansy Parkinson are on the Ravenclaw table, speaking with a few Ravenclaw girls and two boys from Beauxbatons, and Draco is bent over something or other with Crabbe and Goyle. Theodore and Blaise are having a serious discussion - Harry can tell it's about politics, because Theodore looks furious, waving his paper around, and Blaise looks utterly impassive.

He and Blaise haven't been in a broom cupboard again, but Blaise and Harry have had a few moments here and there, snogging in corridors or in Harry's bed with the curtains drawn.

Harry absently bites the inside of his cheek - it's something he's going to ask Sirius about today, he's decided. Not Blaise specifically, or even men, but... Sex.

* * *

"Sex," Sirius repeats. He reaches up, stroking his hand awkwardly over his own jaw: there's a little stubble growing there, and it looks like he's considering growing out a proper beard but hasn't yet entirely taken the plunge. He doesn't know how he feels about his godfather with facial hair: he'd seen the horrible, patchy beard he'd grown during Azkaban, but even with a haler, healthier face Harry doesn't know if Sirius' beard will grow in in the full, dignified manner he's probably aiming for. They're walking together in the woods a little way out of the village, still in complete sight of Hogwarts and within the village's perimeters, but out of the way of the other students wandering around and doing a little shopping.

"Sex," Harry agrees. Sirius is thinking very, very carefully, shifting from side to side and looking mildly uncomfortable with the question. "You're thinking about what Remus would tell me," Harry says in a mildly accusatory tone.

"I'm not," Sirius argues, but after a moment he admits, "Yeah, I am." Harry had known Sirius had probably do this - Sirius has made a habit of looking to Remus for the "responsible" decision for him to make, and while it's endearing, it's not really what he's after at the moment.

"If I wanted advice from Remus, I'd ask Remus," Harry points out, not in an unkind tone. Sirius bites his lip, worrying the flesh under his teeth for a few seconds, and then he crosses his arms over his chest. The stroke to Sirius' ego does seem to motivate him somewhat, though, and he relents.

"What did you want to know?"

"When did you, er..." He hesitates. "I don't need all the details of the act. I just wanted to know when you... You know."

"When did I know what?" Sirius asks, frowning at Harry, and Harry suppresses the urge to huff.

"When did you do it? Shag someone?"

"Oh, right." Sirius coughs awkwardly, looking away. Harry had hoped he'd be a bit smoother about this, but apparently any guardian gets flustered over the talk of sex. At the very least, they do when it comes from their wards. "Well-"

"You're trying to remember what age Remus lost his virginity," Harry says, and Sirius gives him an irritated look.

"Stop doing that. You're meant to be learning Occlumency, not Legilimency." Harry laughs, and Sirius frowns, shaking his head and giving Harry a sideways glance before he shoves his hands into the pockets of his deep red trousers. They've got the same outdated flare as his ripped-up jeans, but worn with an embroidered waistcoat and a black shirt with ridiculously puffy sleeves, they actually look almost good. "I was fifteen when I actually shagged a girl, fourteen for some other stuff. But that doesn't mean-"

"Oh, good," Harry says. "We're about equal so far then." Sirius glances at him, and then his teeth show as he breaks out into a purely wolfish grin, ruffling Harry's hair and looking as proud of him as he ever could.

"That's my lad. What's her name? What's she look like? Is she pretty? Oh, take that back - she's probably about your age." Harry laughs, turning his head away: the transmission from responsible, sober father figure to "cool godfather" had been almost instantaneous, and Sirius lets out a little growl of noise. "You tricked me."

"I didn't trick you," Harry says. "Sex isn't evil, Sirius, you don't have to ban me from having any just because."

"You are young," Sirius says. "What'd do you do? Actually, don't tell me. I don't want to know the sordid details." Sirius wrinkles his nose, shaking his head slightly, and then says, "Don't tell Moony I'm proud of you. Tell him I gave you a long lecture. Tell Molly that too."

"I wasn't going to tell either of them I'd done anything, to be honest, Sirius," Harry says, and Sirius narrows his eyes slightly, considering this as a course of action before he nods his head. Harry breathes in slightly - he feels relief that Sirius had, uh, matured, at about the same age, and the fact that Sirius isn't staring at him in horror is a comfort. Of course, if Sirius knew it had been another boy instead of a girl, he supposes that might be different.

"Was it, uh, good? You're- I mean, what I mean is, nothing hurt, and it was all okay?"

"Didn't taste great," Harry admits, and Sirius nods his head sagely.

"It differs person by person," he says, "though there are some great novelty potions for that. I remember, in our seventh year, a lass in Ravenclaw took one that made her taste of cherries, and for the whole week-" Harry starts to laugh as his godfather trails off, and they walk together. He glances up at Sirius: he's grown a little over the summer, and he's hoping he'll beat Sirius by the time he's done growing: Sirius stands at five foot ten, only a little taller than Snape, and Harry's dad had looked about six feet in the photos he'd seen. "You, uh, you know spells for-" Sirius makes a whistling sound.

"What?"

Sirius coughs. "For..." He whistles again.

"What the Hell are you going on about?"

"Contraception," Sirius hisses, as if it's dirtier to say the word than telling Harry how a girl's nether regions tasted.

"Oh, right," Harry says awkwardly. He realizes he hasn't spared the subject a single thought. Blaise had, after all, been his only immediate concern, but he feels a bit of an idiot for having forgotten about contraception entirely. "No. Didn't really occur to me, to be honest."

"I'll send you some notes by owl," Sirius says seriously. "Nothing to take lightly, that. Not that you should rush into anything, but you should uh, know them in advance, Harry. I'll send you some others, too..." Sirius frowns, as if making a mental catalogue of all the sex charms he knows that his godson could benefit from. If he ignores the oddity of the situation, Harry finds his dedication touching. "You know any already?"

"I know one for lube," Harry says. He speaks frankly: he sees no reason to be embarrassed with Sirius now that the conversation is underway, and given that he'd asked about this for a reason. "And I know the Dead Arm Charm."

"Ah, an old classic," Sirius says fondly, patting Harry's back. "Where'd you learn it?"

"Theo nicked a book off his cousin. Sex Charms For The Discerning Solo Artist. You know, if you'd just let me pick a few books from that shop in Fargo Alley-" Sirius wavers for a moment, and then an expression of determined sternness appears on his face. Harry had known he'd probably say no, but he had to keep up the act - Sirius would only get suspicious if Harry abruptly gave up asking about the sex shop, and what Harry doesn't need right now is for one of the elder Malfoys or the Weasleys to find out what he's doing with Hermione and the twins.

They walk on for a little while, talking about virtually nothing - Sirius points out a few birds in the trees, mentioning the names of them: apparently he and Harry's dad had had a theory that Sirius would be a bird, but obviously they were a bit far off in their estimation. "You felt anything yet, where the transformation's concerned?"

"Yeah," Harry says eagerly. The sex talk had been a slightly uncomfortable necessity, but the Animagus transformation he's actually excited to talk about, and he looks at Sirius. "I've been doing some of the meditation exercises, and sort of combining them with my Occlumency stuff. A lot of the guidance for the beginnings of the disciplines seem to be pretty similar. This morning I felt- I felt something."

"Felt what?"

"It's hard to describe. Like the air moved, but the air inside my own head." Sirius nods his head, a small, appraising grin on his face.

"That's a good start, Harry," he says. "That's early, too - we all struggled with keeping our minds clear enough to feel anything until we were about four months into it. You probably have better mental discipline than we did, mind." Harry grins a little, looking at the footprints his and Sirius' feet are leaving in the mulchy, orange-brown mess of leaves carpeting the woody path. "I've got something for you."

"Really?" Harry asks, and Sirius gives him a wry smile.

"Don't look excited," Sirius warns. "It's nothing fun." He draws a set of vials out of his satchel before pulling out a bottle of clear, viscous potion. Harry recognizes it from the diagram in one of his Animagus books, and he picks it up, holding it up to the muted sunshine to examine. The liquid shifts thickly against the glass as he moves the bottle slightly, and then he takes the set of vials.

"So, this is the Priming Potion," Harry says, holding up the bottle. He'd been reading about this part of the Animagus transformation - the Priming Potion allows a person to digest certain magical ingredients raw in a way they wouldn't ordinarily be able to, and the five vials hold the ingredients he has to eat: some powdered Mandrake leaf, pixie wings, doxy eggs, some finely chopped daisy roots and...

"What's that last one?" Harry asks, frowning at the final bottle. He's become pretty good at recognizing ingredients on sight - some of the more focused potioneers in the seventh year can identify them by smell alone - but the last one is unfamiliar to him.

"That," Sirius says, "is Boggart blood." The stuff is bubbly and black, but when Harry holds it to the light it begins to shimmer into one colour and then the next, shifting in the light.

"It never listed any of this stuff in my book," Harry says, thoughtfully. "I think it was a Phoenix feather, some powdered unicorn hair, some beetle eyes... The ingredients don't matter, though, right?" The Priming Potion's actual function seems simple enough to understand: when someone drinks a little of it before consuming whatever ingredient they need, it allows the body to try and digest some of its magical properties, leaving someone more able to try transformations later on.

"Yes, and no," Sirius says. "Virtually anything will work for this, if you use it in the right combination. Kids in some of the Central African schools take potions like this before they even start using the sort of magic you learn when you start at Hogwarts, but the ingredients they use are usually much less potent, and their effect is cummulative over a few years. It's an easier process that they follow."

"That makes sense," Harry says. "Why don't we do that?"

"We haven't got the right sort of ingredients, to begin with," Sirius says, shrugging his shoulders. "And then there's the fact that we learn theory of magic with wand usage to start off, whereas those kids will start earlier on with wandless magic. It's a different culture, a different way of teaching, you know? You'll find that wherever you go, where magic's concerned. We used gillyweed instead of Mandrake leaf, but... Well. We ended up having to chuck James in the lake when he grew gills and stopped breathing." Harry sniggers despite himself, shaking his head.

"The properties your body is going to try and take on are to do with transformation, latent magic and animal magic," Sirius explains, and Harry feels so much more comfortable asking questions now - he'd been a little less certain talking about sex, given that it'd been a conversation he wanted to have more out of necessity, but this is more stable ground.

"Aren't daisy roots a stabilizer?" Harry asks. He's used them in a few potions so far, but he knows they're especially important at NEWT level, where potions ingredients are more volatile and more likely to go wrong.

"You take the daisy roots on the third day out of three. As a stabilizer. It's just a precaution, because you should be fine, but it's recommended to take a stabilizer in the middle of your routine. The full moon is Thursday. The day of the cusp, you start your little prescription - a gulp of the potion, then the Mandrake. The next day, the pixie wings, and so on." Sirius is fairly sober as he speaks, crossing his arms over his chest and looking down at the set of ingredients Harry neatly sets into his bag. "The potion's not difficult, but it needs fiddling with at odd times, so I thought it'd be better to do it for you rather than making you hide it in some toilet."

"Thanks, Sirius," Harry says, honestly, and he leans into it as Sirius pulls him into a hug, pressing a kiss to the top of his head. "You're a great godfather." Sirius lets out a satisfied sigh.

"Yeah, I know."

"And modest, too," Harry quips. "So, I've got a week of drinking a weird potion and putting strange shit in my mouth, then."

"Bit like being a working boy on Knockturn Alley, really," Sirius says philosophically, and Harry groans, pushing the other man away.

"You're disgusting, Sirius," Harry complains as Sirius lets out his loud laugh, tossing his head back and laughing like it's the greatest pleasure in the world.

"Yeah," he agrees fondly, trying to ruffle Harry's hair even though he dodges out of the way. "I am."

Harry adjusts his bag on his shoulder, and he and Sirius turn and head back into the village. Harry sees McGonagall and Celia together, talking quietly, and Harry gives them a wave as they walk back onto Hogsmeade's main path. "Any trouble?" Sirius asks, and McGonagall gives a shake of her head, but her expression is serious, her lips twisted into a small frown.

They walk into the village again, and Sirius leads the both of them into Honeydukes. Sirius murmurs quietly to Harry about a trapdoor that leads into Hogwarts from the basement of the shop as he picks out a few bars of chocolate for Remus, and Harry considers this as he picks up a box of eight Chocolate Frogs. He's been toying with the idea of trying to build up a proper collection, trading cards with other students at Hogwarts to build it up - Theodore has a collection of four hundred, ordered obsessively neatly in alphabetical order in a specially decorated album, with no duplicates, and while Harry doesn't want to go that far, it looks like a fun hobby.

He turns his head to ask Sirius if he has any, but there's a loud scream from outside, and Harry drops the box before even thinking about it - brown frogs bounce animatedly over the floor as he rushes outside, leaving them wandering on the floor behind him.


	68. Year Four: Gilderoy Lockhart

Lindon Sartorius stands surrounded by a shield of bright, flickering flames. The heat that comes off it is amazing, and Harry gasps in a surprised breath as he stares at it: he can just see Sartorius' black-clad form silhouetted on the inside of the orange-red sphere, and as a spell is fired into it the flames let out a spark or two but remain surrounding him. Harry turns his head, and he recognizes the American from his photograph in the Prophet when he was arrested - Chad Arnett has black hair that shows blond at its roots, and it's moulded into a quiff with a strategically loose strand of hair artfully tousled over his forehead.

His robes are cream-white with pink ribbons twisted at his waist, sleeves and the sides of his legs, and Harry's certain he's seen the exact look in one of the fashion magazines he pretends not to look through when Daphne Greengrass leaves them in the common room. He holds his wand aloft and keeps casting at Lindon, but the wall of flames absorbs every spell.

"Expelliarmus!" Harry yells, but Arnett turns before the spell can hit him in the back, and he turns to face Harry, who doesn't stand out. He dodges a purple stream of light that flies towards him, throwing a Knee-Reversal Hex in his direction, and Arnett buckles, falling backwards. Harry throws up a shield as Arnett casts towards him, but a woman in lilac robes runs towards him, grabbing him by the shoulder before they disappear together.

Lindon drops his shield, leaving dark smoke filtering up into the air around him. A black ring marks the dirt path around him, and Harry can hear him yelling something indistinct to Cecilia, shaking a leather-bound book in his hands. Harry strains his ears as he walks forwards, but then he hears a, "Oh, Harry!" from behind him.

Harry turns on his heel in a split second, and he faces Lockhart with his wand held aloft.

Lockhart's hair is a little longer than before, in loose blond locks around his head, and Harry can see his Azkaban number tattooed on his neck, poking visibly out from under the Chinese collar of his robes. His eyes are filled with a cold fury, but of any wizard on Earth, Gilderoy Lockhart is probably one of those Harry would feel completely comfortable facing in a duel.

"How'd you like Azkaban?" Harry says sharply before Lockhart can say anything more, and the fraud's cheeks go slightly pink as he watches Harry, his mouth twisting into a snarl that could easily make its way into Witch Weekly's catalogue of evil snarls.

"Do you think I can't kill you, Harry?" Lockhart demands. Harry can see a few teachers coming forwards from the sides, pushing students behind their bodies to shield them slightly, but none of them try and cast in his direction. There are only two or three metres between him and Lockhart, and Harry knows none of them want to hit him with a hex when Lockhart's right in front of him.

"You can't even kill a pixie, you useless hack," Harry retorts, and he twists his arm before hissing, "Colei Novis!" The spell hits Lockhart directly despite the older man's attempt to dodge, and he lets out a cry, dropping his wand and cupping his crotch in horror, falling to his knees. Harry steps forwards to try and Stun him, but before he can manage Lockhart disappears.

"He had a Portkey," Sirius says, running forwards to put his hand on Harry's shoulder and frown down at him. "You alright?"

"I'm fine," Harry says. "Annoyed I didn't catch that bloody twat-" He blinks as a flash is aimed at him, and snaps, "This isn't the time, Colin!"

"I got a picture of you casting that spell, Harry! What spell was it? What did it do? It looked like it hurt! Where did you learn it? One of them got me!" Colin proudly holds up his arm, and Harry groans at the little Gryffindor, horrified at the sight of it: Creevey's white-sleeved arm is thick with blood, and Harry grabs his wrist before he can hold up his camera, pushing up the sleeve. It's not a cut: it looks like he's just taken a harsh graze across the side of his forearm, and his Muggle shirt has made it look more dramatic than the wound is.

Harry ignores Sirius talking behind him, focusing on Colin's arm and murmuring a healing spell as Colin excitedly chatters about pushing Neville Longbottom out of the way of the man with the black hair and trying to cast a few spells but failing to hit with any of them. He murmurs a cleaning spell, but it only draws a little of the blood out of Creevey's shirt, leaving it with one pink sleeve and one white one. Despite the slightly annoying nature of Creevey's excited chatter, Harry can't help but be slightly impressed - he's definitely showing off his Gryffindor bravery on his first Hogsmeade trip.

"Go away, Colin," Harry says, patting his shoulder, and Colin beams up at him. "I want copies of those pictures, okay?"

"Yeah, sure! I can't wait to tell Dennis, Harry!" Harry watches after him as he runs off, shaking his head slightly. Hermione is talking with Ron Weasley, and Harry winces as he sees him - the Gryffindor has his head half-shorn, and Harry recognizes the effects of a Scalping Hex immediately. A few of the Gryffindors seem to have their own scrapes and wounds, Harry realizes as he glances around, but no one seems to be seriously injured.

"You alright?" Harry asks as he comes over. Glancing over his shoulder, he sees McGonagall and Flitwick rapidly talking. Flitwick looks ready to commit a few murders, and Harry's sure they'd be creative if he was permitted the license.

"I hit her with a Conjunctivitus Jinx," Ron says, "Darling, the lady in the lilac robes. Flitwick says they're going to call into St Mungo's to look out for a Splinching, because he doubts she's been able to Apparate both herself and Arnett without doing it."

"Well done, Ron," Harry says, and Ron gives him a grin. His lip is split, but Hermione fixes it up pretty quickly, and he stands up straight as they walk towards the teacher. "You think they'll be able to fix your hair?" Ron's head is shorn all up the left side, and while on the right he's got the same thick, red hair, the left side is nearly bald and a little bloody in places.

"Dunno," Ron says, giving a shrug. "Thinks it makes me look battle-hardened."

"It makes you look stupid, if anything," Hermione says, and Harry laughs.

"Thirty points to Slytherin, Potter, and twenty to Gryffindor, Weasley!" Flitwick says as soon as the three of them approach: his tone is stiff and his expression has a lingering fury, but neither of those seem to be directed at the two of them. "Excellent form!"

"Thanks, Professor," Harry says, and he watches McGonagall's deep frown as she glances around the village. "Where'd they get in?"

"They Apparated onto the roof of the Hog's Head," she says, "I'm going to have a word with Aberforth. For the time being- I think we'll get everyone back up to the castle. You three walk up to the gates: Severus will let you in." Harry frowns slightly, slightly surprised - he's seen Sinistra, Flitwick, McGonagall and Cecilia in the village, but he's surprised Snape was stationed at the gates.

"Is everyone okay, Ma'am?"

"There are a few glancing injuries, but nothing serious, Potter," McGonagall says. "Up you go now."

* * *

Hogwarts is awash with hurried conversation that afternoon. Harry sees Ron sat on the floor of the great hall, letting Lavender Brown coax his hair into its previous length again on the one side, and Luna Lovegood is examining a bruise on her face with a mirror. "You didn't get hurt, did you, Luna?" Harry asks. She glances up at him, apparently surprised at the question, and then gives him a smile.

"Oh, I didn't go into Hogsmeade today, Harry," she says with a small shrug. "I was walking with a unicorn in the forest, and took rather a tumble. It does give me a sense of the dramatic, I feel. Do you know any charms for bruises? I'll teach you one for fixing a broken nose."

"Sure, alright," Harry says, sitting down beside her. Luna sets her stone-framed mirror in her lap, and Harry cups her chin to hold her head still. Her skin is warm under his cold hands, and he mutters an apology as he soothes the thumb-sized bruise from the side of her cheek. He writes down the charm for her, and he takes the parchment she offers as trade. "Episkey," he murmurs under his breath, giving a nod of his head.

"Have you enjoyed your taste of battle today, Harry?" Luna asks, fingering the cool obsidian of her mirror's casing, and Harry sighs. He looks at the mirror in Luna's hands as he speaks: it's pretty in a rugged sort of way, like a mountain at sunset, and it looks too heavy to be held so easily between Luna's dainty-looking hands.

"I'd rather they were back in Azkaban, to be honest," he admits, and he glances up as a gaggle of Beauxbatons girls come into the room.

"'Arry!" Fleur Delacour says, clapping her hands together. "You are like a man on the duelling field, non?"

"I am a man," Harry says, and she laughs.

"A very petit man," she says, making a gesture with her hands, and Harry frowns at her as she and her friends giggle. They settle into eating some food, though, and Harry stays at the Ravenclaw table beside Luna, talking with her about the Quibbler's recent feature on Heliopaths and their infiltration of the Ministry of Magic. If he's honest, the conversation is utterly mad, but he'd be a liar to say he didn't find the Lovegoods' theories on the wizarding world to be interesting.

Besides, Luna's a nice girl, and Harry thinks she's quite pretty, too.

* * *

"Professor Hayworth?" asks Hermione, leaning forwards against her desk and peering up at her. There are twenty minutes left to the lesson, but they've finished the theory they need before learning a Knockback Jinx next lesson, and Celia doesn't want to start the practical just yet. "What was that book Lindon had in Hogsmeade on Saturday?" Immediately, most of the students in the room lean forwards, interested.

She sighs, rolling her eyes, and leans back against her desk. Sitting on the edge of it, her red boots swing on her feet, and Harry glances at their rainbow laces absently, wondering where she got them. "For the past few years, Lindon's been pursuing the stories of spell tomes."

Harry glances around: a few of the Slytherins look interested, but Harry's fairly certain he's only ever heard the term in one of Dudley's stupid video games. "What's that, a spell tome?" He's learned a lot about the wizarding world over the past few years, but he still often feels like he's missing the most crucial part of legends and popular culture, and he's always eager to pick up a few new bits of knowledge.

"Mr Nott?" Cecilia asks, and Theodore pulls his head out of his book, looking like a startled deer for a few seconds before Blaise hurriedly whispers in his ear, and then he pulls himself together.

"They're legendary magic - they were used in Ancient Egypt onwards, developed from scrolls in the times of Mesopotamia. You'd use the tome instead of a wand or a staff, and you'd be able to cast powerful magic at a second's notice just by brushing a page."

"And he's made one?" Ron says excitedly. "He can do that?"

"No," Celia says bluntly. "After scrawling runes over a hundred pages, he can cast one spell that barely works." Harry laughs. Despite Lindon's best efforts, a lot of his attempts at practical magic seem to go wrong - Harry likes the man, but he sometimes wonders if the academic would be better off being a Squib. Nonetheless, though, the shield had worked fairly well, and Harry had been impressed by it. "He can't move with it, and he burnt half of his eyebrows off." He laughs again: perhaps not he's that impressed.

"Aren't runes just an old language?" asks Pansy Parkinson, scrunching up her pug nose and seeming rather disgusted by the idea. Harry isn't alone in shooting her an annoyed look: Pansy Parkinson is a girl that pretends to be stupider than she is, and for all Harry's general understanding of his fellow Slytherins, he can't for the life of him understand why.

"Yes," Hermione answers, "but you can perform magic with them like you can with Latin or Ancient Greek. It can just be more complex and drawn out - Ancient Runes, the subject we study here, is all just reading and understanding the language, but people use it to cast complex spells on objects all the time. The best enchantments in clothes, shoes and furniture use runes to sustain themselves - it's why cheaper enchantments tend to wear out." Harry is quiet: he likes reading the runic passages they study in class, but he's never gone to too much effort to read up on the language's modern applications.

"Certain ward structures make use of runes, as well as various enchantments. Spell tomes likely used a written language similar to our runes, but that language is almost certainly lost. Trying to replicate it now is- It's insane. But he's making some progress, at least. It's a very complex form of magic - in the same way spell incantations require exact pronunciations, runic magic requires precise inscriptions. It's far too difficult to be taught here." Celia claps her hands together, glancing around the class; everyone likes her well enough, and it'll only improve people's opinions of her to end class early. "If anyone wants to see an example, you can check out the Goblet of Fire."

Harry does have a look at the Goblet of Fire that evening. Dumbledore had revealed it on Saturday, and he has to stand on a stool to peer down into its cup to see the shadows of carved figures visible under the soft blue flame. He stands down, and Lindon enters the room, looking around for something.

"She's in her office," Harry says. Lindon's eyebrows are burned, a little soot still clinging to their partly destroyed curve, and he tries not to laugh as he looks at the historian.

"Thank you," Lindon says, disappearing, and Harry watches him go. The spell tome is interesting, he supposes, but not something that needs to be his priority for now.


	69. Year Four: The Two Champions

Harry stares with wide eyes as the third piece of paper shoots forth from the Goblet of Fire. It's with the same dramatic burst of flame as the others, but somehow as it floats down towards Dumbledore's waiting, outstretched hand, it moves down impossibly slowly, far slower than the others had. Fleur Delacour and Viktor Krum are already waiting down in the armoury, and now it's time for the Hogwarts Champion to be selected. A sinking feeling makes itself known in his chest, chilling and nauseating, and Harry knows even before it touches the headmaster's wrinkled fingers whose name is on it.

"Cedric Diggory!" Relief floods through him - God, how could he have thought it was going to be him? What a stupid thing to worry about. He shakes his head, giving a little laugh into his pumpkin juice, but then...

"What's he doing?" Blaise asks beside him, and Harry turns back up to the staff table as Diggory runs up and into the trophy room. Dumbledore is turning the parchment over between his fingers and talking hurriedly to Amelia Bones. Oh, no. No, no, no, no.

"Harry Potter," the old man says quietly, and Harry shrinks down in his seat; as a protective reflex, the other Slytherins sit up straighter, leaning around Harry, surrounding him, and blocking the other Houses' view of him. "Harry Potter," Dumbledore repeats a little more forcefully.

"No thanks," Harry calls back from behind the broad body of one of the Slytherin beaters, ducking a little lower. "Not happening."

"Mr Potter, your name has been called by the Goblet of Fire," Dumbledore says. Whispering is becoming louder and louder all around the hall, and all of the Slytherins are looking at Harry with a mix of concern, irritation and upset. Theodore's hand is on Harry's shoulder, holding the back of his robes tightly as if it will somehow protect Harry from this nonsense.

"I didn't put it in there, sir, so I'm not coming up." There is muttering around the other tables, some from the other Hogwarts students, but mostly from the Beauxbatons and Durmstrang students, all of whom are leaning right out of their seats in an attempt to get a look at Harry's face.

"It's your handwriting, Mr Potter," Dumbledore says, in what Harry's sure the old man thinks is a reasonable tone, and Harry's never hated this school more than he does in this moment.

"I didn't put my name in the Goblet, sir. I refuse. I rescind whoever's offer it was. I decline."

"You can't," Celia's voice says quietly from the table, and although Harry can't see her, he can imagine her serious, concerned expression. "It's a magical contract, Harry, the runes on the inside are intricate but binding. Refuse, and it'll kill you."

"Who says the tournament won't kill me anyway?" Harry demands, and he loses his patience, standing up. Bones is staring at him with her eyes wide and a hand over her mouth, and Ludo Bagman looks ready to throw a party, the fat bastard. "I'm fourteen. You just said I couldn't participate. There was an age line, and we already have a Champion! It's not happening, Professor, I won't do it!"

"The cup doesn't know, and it doesn't care," Celia maintains in a quiet voice that rings through the room, and Harry feels all the eyes in the hall on him as he makes his way to the middle of the floor, sweating and doing his best to remain calm. "Your name is on it. It's your hand. The contract is signed." Harry's gaze flits past the staring eyes of McGonagall, Dumbledore, Celia and the rest of the teachers, and he meets Snape's black stare. His head of house very slowly stands and, almost imperceptibly, gives a nod of his head.

"I hate this fucking school," Harry snaps, loudly enough for the Ravenclaw first years to his left to hear him and gasp in horror, and he stalks up to the staff table, pushing past Dumbledore and following Snape down and into the trophy room. He heads straight for Diggory, shoving the older boy hard in the chest, and Diggory's blue eyes and handsome face contort themselves into an expression of surprise.

"Hey!" The Hufflepuff says, as if Harry doesn't have any reason to be mad.

"You put my name on the other side of your parchment," Harry snaps. "You twat, how the Hell did you even-" He grabs for his wand, but Snape's cold, clammy hand is suddenly tight on Harry's wrist, pulling him sharply away from Diggory and stopping Harry from doing any damage. "Let me-"

"No," Snape hisses at Harry like he's giving an order to a badly behaved puppy, and shoves him to stand against one of the trophy cabinets. Harry crosses his arms over his chest, twisting his mouth into a scowl, and Diggory has the gall to peer at him.

"What is 'appening?" Madame Maxime asks, a mild note of anxiety in her voice. "Why is this boy 'ere?"

"He put my name in the Goblet of Fire!" Harry says sharply, pointing an accusing finger at Cedric.

"I did not!" Diggory argues, a pink tinge appearing on his handsome cheeks. "Why would you think-"

"Mr Diggory," Dumbledore says in a delicate tone, "Mr Potter's name was on the other side of your parchment." Cedric's cheeks loose their blush, turning a little pale, and he looks from Dumbledore to Harry, shaking his head rapidly. "You had nothing to do with this?"

"No, no, I'd never do that, I swear."

"Hogwarts is to have two Champions, then?" Karkaroff demands. "How-"

"Shut up," Harry snaps, and Karkaroff stares down at him, curling his lip. "If you so desperately want a fourteen-year-old boy on your team, Karkaroff, hand me a contract and I'll join your school right now!" There's an awkward pause as Karkaroff turns his dark eyes away from Harry's, and Harry feels the gazes of Maxime and the other teachers on him as he keeps his focus on Karkaroff. "What? Don't want me after all? You-"

"Calm down, Potter," Snape orders, and Harry sits down. He listens as Amelia Bones and Ludo Bagman talk quietly about the rules of the tournament - Bones seems harried, but Harry can't bring himself to feel sorry for her only having had a month or so to familiarize herself with the rules of the Triwizard Tournament. He wants to yell and scream and kick, for all the good it's going to do him: it makes no difference that he might have put his name into the Goblet, had the choice been offered to him.

It's that he didn't have the choice.

"It would seem, then, that Hogwarts will have its two Champions working in conjunction: Mr Diggory, Mr Potter, you will work together."

"When I get killed by a dragon or something," Harry says icily, "does the title of Hogwarts Champion revert to just him?" Bagman actually laughs, and Harry feels like trying to punch him.

"Indeed, Mr Potter," Dumbledore says pleasantly, "though I'm sure it will not come to that."

"I want Sirius," Harry says. "Right now - I'm not of age. I don't have the- I can't sign a legally binding contract like this, can I? I'm not old enough."

"The Goblet of Fire has worked for hundreds of years, Harry," Amelia Bones says tiredly, wiping her brow. "It doesn't see the difference between a fourteen year old and a seventeen year old - that was something we just added in."

"It's not fair!" Fleur says sharply, "he is a boy! He will be killed!" Cedric nods his head, standing beside Fleur and looking concerned for Harry's welfare - Harry knows he's going to have to apologize, but for the time being he doesn't want to. He just wants to scream.

"It's an unfair advantage," snaps Karkaroff. "He's just faced a grown wizard in combat, and faced the Dark Lord himself, has he not?"

"I want Sirius," Harry says again, and Dumbledore seems to realize that no number of pleasant smiles or twinkling glances will calm him down. He inclines his head, and Harry leans back against the trophy case, crossing his arms over his chest. Krum has been silent throughout this endeavour, but when Harry turns to look his way he gives Harry a short look. His expression remains as grim as Harry's ever seen it, but he gives Harry a minute nod, a steadfast expression of... Something or other. Harry guesses it's meant to be some kind of comfort, so he offers the Bulgarian a small, stiff smile smile.

* * *

Sirius can't actually do anything for him. Harry, on one level, had known that, and so he isn't all that disappointed as he listens to Sirius talk to Dumbledore and Bones. On the other, Harry feels nothing more than a desperate desire to go back to Grimmauld Place and lie in his own bed, where none of the Slytherin boys will be able to ask how he got his name into the Goblet of Fire.

"Headmaster," Harry hears Snape say, and he doesn't bother looking at the older men as they speak, a listening silently and messing with his wand. "Every Hogwarts entry has Mr Potter's name on its back."

"What?" Sirius demands.

"Obviously one individual was suitably desperate for the boy to participate," Snape murmurs, and Harry glances at him. His Head of House's expression is mostly neutral, but Harry can see the slightest twist of his lip showing his irritation, and he's holding his hands stiffly; it's virtually impossible to glean what Snape is feeling if he doesn't actually spell it out for you, but at the very least Harry can see he's annoyed. Whether it's at him, at Dumbledore, or at the general state of his life, Harry can't discern. "They were each crafted in invisible ink - I don't recognize the brand, but it's a goblin-made product."

"A goblin wanted me in the Triwizard Tournament?" Harry asks, arching his eyebrows at the sheer ridiculousness of it, and the twist of Snape's lips disappears, ironed out like a wrinkle in a skirt of Aunt Petunia's.

"Presumably, Potter, you are as well-loved among the goblins as you are here." Harry laughs. Sirius looks annoyed, but Harry stands up before he can have a go at Snape. The other Champions had all been permitted to go to bed - Cedric had actually offered to stay and argue with Harry, even offered to let all of the Hogwarts names be drawn again, but it hadn't been possible, and even if it had been, Harry doesn't know that he would have taken away Cedric's chance to participate by taking the offer.

"You alright?" Sirius asks quietly. His anger is obvious in his face and the clench of his fists, but Harry doesn't point it out - he just nods his head. The great hall's lights are dimmed, and Harry walks from the room with his hands in his pockets, feeling tired. "I'm sorry, Harry. If there was anything I could do, you know that in a second-"

"Yeah, I know, I know," Harry says, nodding his head. "It's not your fault. I just wish it wasn't me every year. Why does it have to be me?" Sirius reaches out, gently patting Harry's back, and he sighs, stopping in the entrance hall and standing with his godfather for few moments. "Where's Remus?"

"He's in bed," Sirius answers, shaking his head, "He's caught some cold, and because he needs his Wolfsbane on next week he won't take anything for it. He's a mess." Harry feels a pang of sympathy for the werewolf: Remus always seems to be unlucky, and Harry wishes they could do something for him. "Lucius made him a chicken soup and wouldn't let me have any." It's said with such a natural petulance that Harry smiles, trying not to snicker as he looks at Sirius.

"What? Why are you smiling like that?" Sirius demands, utterly oblivious, and Harry just shakes his head, putting his hand on his godfather's arm.

"I'll see you later," Harry murmurs. "Thanks for coming."

"I'd knock down the walls if you needed me, kid," Sirius promises, and Harry gives him a nod, heading down and into the dungeons. At the very least, he thinks, it can't be Voldemort who wants him in the Triwizard Tournament - not unless he's added goblins to his ranks.

 **A/N: Just a reminder that side fics, interludes and the like are only going to be published on Ao3, not on FFnet, because of the respective ease of ordering them series-wise, as well as because Ao3 allows explicit material. There are currently a few side fics and ficlets posted, as well as a Remus/Sirius WIP set within the TSG universe.**


	70. Year Four: Ollivander

"Someone wrote my name on the backs of all the pieces of Hogwarts parchment," Harry says as he enters the Slytherin common room. Dozens of his fellow Slytherins are settled around the room, and all of their eyes are on him, their expressions serious. The younger children - the first and second years - don't look like they have the best grasp of what's going on, but they look worried nonetheless, and the solemn expressions of the seventh years only compounds Harry's lingering anxiety. "Invisible ink - goblin stuff."

"You'd think you'd be dead at this point," says Francis Drummond, his chin on his hand as he looks at Harry. "In some ways, we could say you're doing quite well." The sardonic, slightly depressed phrasing makes laughter ring around the room, and Harry chuckles a little, shoving the older boy in the back of the shoulder. There's talk back and forth for a while - Harry explains that he and Cedric will be joint Champions, working together in the tasks, and it's met with mixed approval and irritation on Harry's behalf.

He's allowed to head off soon enough, though, and Draco walks with him to the dormitory.

Harry flops back onto his mattress, watching as Draco combs his hair, and says, "You think the Hufflepuffs will hate me?" Cedric is a good man, but Harry had seen some of the glares the Hufflepuffs had sent his way as he'd walked up to the trophy room, and he considers them now with a sinking feeling. It's not as if Harry has close working relationships with the Hufflepuffs as it is, but they barely ever get any glory to themselves, and he doesn't really want to have to deal with their ire.

"Probably," Draco says, tossing his head and sneering. "As if their opinions matter. Did Sirius say what Father said?"

"No, actually," Harry says. "Remus is sick - he's been making him soup." Draco glances at Harry, seeming impressed. Given Lucius Malfoy's general focus on food, Harry can only assume it's some kind of compliment in Draco's eyes.

"It's good, his chicken soup. There are all sorts of ingredients in it that invigorate you," he says, "I used to feign illness when I was eight or nine just so he'd make me some." Harry laughs, kicking off his boots and lying down properly in bed. He'll get up to change in a few moments, but for the time being he doesn't really want to go to the effort of actually moving. "I'm sure he'll make you some when this competition nearly kills you."

"I hope so," Harry says lightly. "I'm hearing good things." Draco smirks at him, and Harry turns away as he begins to get changed for bed, reaching for a book from his shelf. He feels wide-awake, and he knows he won't be able to sleep for a while yet. He grasps at an as-yet untouched book called An Eye Into The Mind: The History of Legilimency, setting it on his pillow before reaching for his pyjamas.

He can always close his curtains, so it's not like Draco can complain about the light.

* * *

Harry stands quietly in the empty room with Cedric Diggory, his wand in hand. They're waiting for Fleur and Krum to come up for the Wand Weighing ceremony, and for the time being it's just them and Professor Sprout, who'd come to collect them. She's looking at Harry with a little sympathy on her face, and Harry breathes in slowly, exhaling with the same diminished speed. He needs to be calm, and he doesn't want to panic here.

"I'm sorry about this," Harry murmurs, and Cedric looks down at him, surprised.

"What've you got to be sorry for?" he asks, expression serious. "It's not your fault, Harry - we can work together, alright? And we'll win." Cedric's brightness and utter sincerity is, if Harry is honest, mildly off-putting: he's used to other Slytherins and their dry, sharp-minded humour, and the Hufflepuff intensity is mostly unfamiliar to him. Nonetheless, Cedric's general demeanour is endearing, and despite his oddity Harry likes the other boy.

The door opens, and Harry glances back. Fleur comes into the room with her hips swaying, and she airily ignores the desperate, hungry gaze of the bearded photographer that follows her inside. Madame Maxime stands between them immediately, setting her gigantic hand on one of the part-Veela's dainty shoulders, and Harry frowns at the photographer as he aims his camera at Harry, letting out a flash.

"Bozo, over here!" says a terribly-dressed woman with draconically long, green fingernails. She meets Harry's gaze, and she's obviously thinking he'll look away, but he doesn't. "Harry Potter, isn't it?" she says brightly. "I'm-"

"Rita Skeeter," Harry finishes for her. "Yeah, I know who you are." He's seen her name more and more in the Daily Prophet over the past few years - her articles are normally dripping with inflammatory imagery, and he doesn't really like their focus on stirring up controversy, but he knows that Rita Skeeter is the idol of Romilda Vane in the year below.

"Oh, good!" Skeeter says, clapping her hands together with a disconcerting click of her claws, ignoring Harry's lacking enthusiasm.

"Morning, Viktor," Harry says when Krum enters the room, and the other boy gives him a small nod of his head. Harry is unsure if the two of them are developing a rapport or not - Viktor's general lack of verbal input makes it difficult to tell. Karkaroff opens his mouth to bark something, but when he sees Bozo's camera, he quiets himself. Ludo Bagman accompanies a familiar, white-haired old man with disturbingly bright eyes, and Harry offers Ollivander a small, polite smile.

The Wand Weighing isn't nearly as complicated as Harry had expected - it goes simply as Ollivander tests each with a few simple charms, and as Fleur does a small interview with Rita Skeeter to the side of the room and Bagman talks excitedly to Krum and Cedric about Quidditch, Harry stands beside Ollivander and looks curiously at the old man. He isn't sure whether he can leave just yet, as Skeeter hasn't started her interview with Cedric or Harry yet, and so he's left awkwardly standing.

"Do you have an assistant or something holding the shop?" Harry asks, feeling the need to make some kind of conversation, and Ollivander looks down at him, seeming surprised by the question. The old man's dry, wrinkled lips twitch in something like amusement, and he shakes his head.

"I have no assistant, Mr Potter," Ollivander says in his strange, quiet voice. "The shop is closed for the day. When I return, the walls will thrum." Harry furrows his brow slightly, and Ollivander quickly explains, "Wands dislike to be left with no magic about them. An unused wand is an unhappy one."

"But they're not- they're not sentient," Harry says, tilting his head slightly to the side.

"Of course not," Ollivander agrees immediately, and Harry feels the same uncertainty he usually does when he's been sent a letter by Xenophilius Lovegood: he feels like he lacks the necessary footing in this conversation, and isn't entirely sure where it's leading. Vaguely, he wonders if the Ollivander and Lovegood family trees are linked. "The nature of magic, Mr Potter, is to flow. The nature of a wand, however, is to cast. They wait to be used, settled on the shelves, and pray their owner will come along soon." Ollivander widens his eyes, shifting his silver eyebrows.

"Is it hard? Making wands?"

"No," Ollivander answers smoothly. "It's easy. Though at many times, it is impossible. Wand-making is a delicate science, where magic, craft and comprehension must each be balanced: one uses the correct wood, the correct core, and one channels magic into the wands themselves." Despite himself, Harry is interested, and he watches Ollivander's face as he speaks: the old man, seeming to enjoy a focus on his work, continues. "It is a very ancient craft, Mr Potter, that requires both exactitude and luck in equal measure."

"You've never taken an apprentice?" Harry asks, and Ollivander gives a small, short shake of his head. "Why not?" Ollivander smiles down at Harry, the expression making his old face appear even more ancient. Ollivander leans in, and the smell of wood-shavings and ozone clings to his silver robes: Harry wonders if he could pursue wand-making, one day. Could he be like Ollivander, a bizarre genius? He doubts it.

"The wand chooses the wizard, Mr Potter," Ollivander murmurs as if it's a terrible secret, and then adds, "But so too does the wand-maker." Ollivander abruptly stands straight, and Harry opens his mouth as the man walks away, patting Bagman's shoulder, but he doesn't know what he'd want to say to bring the older wizard back, or even if he'd want to.

He elects to stay silent.

"Harry!" Skeeter says, putting her hand on his shoulder; through the fabric of his robes, her nails dig into his shoulder. "Why don't we go have a little interview in there?" Harry glances to the door she points to, and he shakes his head.

"In a broom cupboard? I think I'm fine," Harry retorts, twisting his arm from her grip, and she presses her lips together.

"Well, out here, then. What do you think your parents would say about this occasion, if they were alive?"

"They'd probably say someone has it in for me," Harry says dryly.

"Why did you put your name in the Goblet?"

"I didn't." Levitating in the air beside her, Rita Skeeter's venomously green quill moves quickly over her notebook's page, and Harry grabs for it, scanning the page. Tears shining in his eyes, the interloping Faux Champion lies once more, leaving this reporter- Harry doesn't read any more of it: he laughs, incredulously, and tears off the page, ripping it into pieces. When he looks at Skeeter's face, her expression is a parody of innocence, and he clucks his tongue, shaking his head. "Actually, for the afternoon, Ma'am, you can just take a no comment from me." The angry flush that comes to Skeeter's cheeks is barely visible under the red powder already caked on the skin, and she presses her lips as tightly together as possible. By no means does he want to be the focus of some sensational article, and so he leaves quickly, running quickly down the corridors to catch the start of his Ancient Runes class.

He's not missing another lesson today because of this stupid competition, and by no means is he going to waste any more time on Rita Skeeter.

* * *

 **INTERLOPING BOY WHO LIVED STEALS SPOTLIGHT**

Harry spends much of breakfast the next morning with his forehead pressed against the surface of the Gryffindor breakfast table. Hermione sits beside him, scanning the article and frowning at its contents. She runs her hand through her hair, and says, "It's not that bad."

"Isn't it?"

"Well, she does call you attention-seeking, stupid, witless, selfish and an interloping snake," Hermione says. "But she also said you had nice hair and that you were dressed well."

"Well," Harry mutters. "So long as she liked my hair." He looks at Hermione as she sighs, shaking her head and frowning down at the page. The interviews of the other Champions had been given a half-page inside the Prophet - the front page is all Harry and his terrible, traitorous ways. "I tried writing Yolanda Hartbrook last night - she writes for the Prophet a fair bit, but she wrote me back this morning and said she's not allowed to do anything on the Triwizard Tournament. The head reporter on it is Skeeter, and she won't let anyone else get in on the action."

"She's probably going to keep on you," Hermione murmurs, "I've seen a lot more Prophets than usual this morning. I can't believe she can do this - it's all lies, and she's just made half of it up."

"It's not like there's a fair press authority in the wizarding world, Hermione," Harry says. "Else the Quibbler wouldn't exist." Hermione huffs, looking angry, and the two of them look up as Fred and George come over.

"Interloper!" they yell together, pointing their fingers at Harry, and he laughs sarcastically at them, letting out three forced "Haha!"s.

"Get back at her," Fred says immediately as he straddles the bench. "Do an interview with somewhere else."

"Like who?" Harry asks. "The Owl Gazette isn't going to be that interested, and-"

"Oh, Harry," George says, shaking his head and admonishing him with a kipper. "You sweet, stupid boy. Stop thinking about newspapers. Write Witch Weekly or Wizard's Staff - not a paper, a magazine. Pose naked for them and tell them all your troubles: you'll get a pretty penny for it, and you can drop in a word about Weasley's Wizard Wheezes."

"We'll give you a Skiving Snackbox to pose with over your todger," Fred says wisely, and Harry snorts, but the idea isn't actually stupid. As light as George's tone is, Harry can see the thought is posed in all seriousness, and the thoughts click in Harry's mind.

"Hey, Harry," Cedric says, putting his hands on George and Fred's shoulders and leaning on them as he looks at Harry. Fred seems mildly annoyed, but George pats Cedric's hand affectionately, obviously amused. "I just wanted to apologize - I didn't say anything about you for Skeeter, and-"

"Don't worry," Harry says. "There's a way you can make it up to me."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah." Harry nods his head as he stands, coming around the table and gesturing for Cedric to follow him. "We just need to grab Fleur and Viktor."

"Both of them seems a bit ambitious," George says. "Neither of them are really in your league, mate."

"Shut up, George," Harry says. "I'll let you know how it goes."


	71. Year Four: Wizard's Staff

The offices of Wizard's Staff are located in Cardiff's Royal Arcade, where a turn in the arcade's corridor leads to an unassuming looking door without a doorknob. Harry had watched with interest as the Wizard's Staff editor had drawn the tip of his wand over the wood, ushering all of them through once a doorknob had appeared, offered a greeting in Welsh, and allowed them inside. They're currently in a large, glass-ceilinged studio, spread all around, and Harry sits on the edge of a desk beside the editor.

"How old are you again?" Victor Langley asks. Harry grins at him as he looks over the room. Fleur is dressed in a periwinkle set of delicate, lacy dressrobes, and she poses with her head held high and her hair loose on her shoulder. She looks beautiful, and she laughs when the camera flashes so that it records the animation of her features.. Cedric is talking animatedly with a pretty reporter with a glossy black bob, and Viktor occasionally adds to the conversation, mostly remaining quiet.

"Fourteen," Harry answers. Langley had met their party at the Hogwarts gate when Harry had Flooed him to offer the interview, and he'd been surprised that the whole thing had been so... Well, so easy.

"And you got all this for a little revenge?"

"Not just revenge," Harry answers. Victor Langley has been the editor of Wizard's Staff for six years, and when Harry had Flooed his office that morning, he had spoken to him personally, ecstatic to be offered an opportunity to interview and photograph each of the Triwizard Champions. Fleur is posing in three different sets of dress robes, and each interview is set to be longer than the Daily Prophet ones had been, taking up a six page spread in the magazine. Harry is pretty certain three of those are just going to be pictures of Fleur, but he doesn't mind, and Fleur looks very pleased about the arrangement. "She gets to keep the robes, right?" Langley chuckles.

"You didn't engineer this so the French girl could get some new clothes."

"I don't like Skeeter," Harry says frankly, shrugging his shoulders. "I'm not ashamed to admit it, Mr Langley." Langley's lips twitch. He's a tall, dark-skinned man with green eyes and a silver ring through his lower lip, and he's exactly what Harry hadn't expected as the editor of a wizard's magazine. Harry had made his offer plainly: an exclusive interview from Harry Potter, as well as interviews and photographs of the other Triwizard Champions, and the others had been more than willing to do it.

They're each being paid a hundred and fifty Galleons, and Fleur is getting three new sets of robes on top of the deal, so Harry thinks he's negotiated their cause quite well. Talking quietly and seriously to the side of the room, Karkaroff and Maxime are having some kind of argument, but it's all in French, and Harry doesn't even try to understand it - he expects it's about Viktor, who Karkaroff had tried to stop coming. Viktor had grimly insisted he would come, thank you, Headmaster, and while he doesn't really look happy to be here, he doesn't look happy to be anywhere.

"I won't complain," Langley says. "I've obviously won here. How are you feeling about your odds?"

"My odds?" Harry asks, arching an eyebrow. "What do you mean?"

"Well, the goblins seem to have faith in you, but a lot of the wizard betting agencies are betting on you to die in the Tournament." Harry laughs. Langley is studying his face intently, whether to glean what bet he should make or just to see his reaction, Harry isn't certain.

"I'll tell my godfather to put a few Galleons on me to snuff it," Harry says, for some reason finding the idea funny. "I didn't really want to do this, to be honest, but I'm gonna do my best not to die."

"Always a good plan," Langley says approvingly, with a small nod of his head, and he reaches for a pad and paper, setting a quill to run over the page as he looks at Harry expectantly. "Now, Mr Potter," he says, voice utterly changing in its level of professionalism and taking on an almost fruity tone, "How does it feel to be the youngest competitor in a competition that's killed dozens of its players?"

"A bit daunting, to be honest," Harry says, watching the quill slide over the page, "but I'm pretty sure V- er, He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, isn't going to be one of the tasks, so you could say it's looking up for me." Langley lets out a quiet, slightly nervous little laugh, looking appreciative at Harry's not saying Voldemort's real name. Or- well, actually, it isn't his real name, is it? Harry frowns slightly, suddenly distracted by the idea: he'd never spared it any thought, but Voldemort an't possibly be the actual man's name.

"Mr Potter?" Harry glances back to Langley. Langley's eyes are focused on his face, a slight concern obvious, and Harry shakes his head slightly, trying to make himself concentrate.

"Oh, sorry, I got distracted for a second there. Could you say the question again?"

"Do you think you'll win the competition, you and Cedric Diggory?" Langley repeats. Harry glances around the room: Viktor is now posing for photographs instead of Fleur, wearing a set of violet Quidditch robes embroidered with Hickory's Quidditch Gear on the breast, and Fleur and Cedric are standing behind the photographer, peering at Viktor as he's photographed in one stern, dramatic pose after another.

"Yeah," Harry decides, as Cedric laughs at something Fleur whispers in his ear. "Yeah, you know what? I think we will. We will."

* * *

"Get your posters here!" George says, clapping his hands together. "Slytherin heart throb, Harry Potter, blown up to grin on your walls - and with the sexiest snack box over his snack box!" Harry laughs as he holds the poster Fred had blown up from the Wizard's Staff article: it had only taken up a quarter of the page, as well as pictures of Cedric and Viktor, but it's the size of a normal poster now. The poster Harry laughs as he shakes the Skiving Snackbox in his hands, and although Harry had elected not to do the photoshoot without his clothes on, George is set on his method of salesmanship.

It wouldn't be so bad, except that people are actually buying them. George is selling them at ten Sickles apiece, and he's already got twenty Galleons or so: Cedric laughs when George offers him one, and buys two, the bastard.

"It's good that you two get on," Hermione says lightly as they sit in the library that afternoon. Harry has spent about twenty minutes arguing his case to Irma Pince to be allowed a book on one of the upper shelves of the library: it's not in the Restricted Section, but it's considered semi-restricted, and she'd been reluctant to hand it over until he'd said that if he died in the Triwizard Tournament, he'd know who to tell his godfather to blame.

She'd looked horrified at the comment, and had just stormed off - Harry thinks he'll send her something as an apology, as she had looked really upset, but at least he has his book now.

"Me and Cedric?" Harry asks, glancing over the title page of his book. Ensnaring The Mind is about different sorts of mind-based magics, including Occlumency and Legilimency, but it covers much of the theory: how magic can be used to strengthen the mind, and why it's been used that way over the years. All of the books on practical mind magic are in the Restricted Section, but Harry already has most of the texts he needs in his room.

"Yeah," Hermione says, "are you listening to me?" Harry closes the book shut, pushing it away and looking at Hermione properly with a mildly mocking expression on his face, and she kicks him under the table. He laughs, and he sits back in his chair. Across the room, he can see Viktor Krum with his curved nose in a book, flanked by a dozen girls who keep whispering over him, though not loud enough for Pince to chuck them out. "He's there again, isn't he?"

"Yeah," Harry says, arching an eyebrow. He leans forwards, waving to the other Champion, and Viktor seems pleased to have been invited over; he shifts forwards, and Harry murmurs a quiet spell under his breath as the girls come towards them. "Hey," he hisses to his Conjured three snakes, "I'll give you lots of rats if you chase those girls away." The snakes titter, and quickly make their way off, slithering past Viktor as he sits with them and making the girls scream and yell as they run out of the library. Harry recognizes Romilda Vane leading the group and suppresses a tut of noise, shaking his head. "You okay, Viktor?"

"What was that?" he demands, nodding to the snakes.

"Oh," Harry says. "Guess you wouldn't know." It's odd: he's become so used, over the years, to any given stranger being aware of random facts about him, and speaking to Krum is a welcome change.

"Harry's a Parselmouth," Hermione says quietly, and Viktor turns to look at her seriously. Despite his eternally grim expression, he seems a little softer than usual, and Harry's lips twitch as Hermione meets Viktor's gaze.

"Viktor," Harry says, "this is my friend, Hermione. She's pretty, huh?" Hermione looks ready to snap at him, but she goes quiet when the Quidditch player responds.

"Da," Viktor agrees absently, and then whips his head to the side to stare at Harry as Hermione stifles a quiet chuckle.

"Thanks, Harry," Hermione says. "It's nice to meet you, Viktor."

"And you- Hermy-own...?"

"Her-My-Oh-Knee," Hermione says, and although she speaks quietly, she enunciates each syllable. As she does so, Harry sees Krum's lips move as he follows the pronunciation, and he pulls his book towards himself as Hermione and Viktor begin to talk about what Hermione's studying.

Hermione's way too distracted to admonish him for smirking at her. As he reads, his head begins to twinge now and then, but he doesn't let on as to what's happening, and tries to focus on his book.

* * *

Harry waits outside of Snape's office, leaning on the wall with his hands shoved into his pockets. His head is beginning to feel like it's been split down the middle with a meat cleaver, and he closes his eyes tightly, gritting his teeth. The pain had slowly worsened over the past hour or so, and he's beginning to feel slightly dizzy with it - far too dizzy to make the trek up to McGonagall's office or Dumbledore's. He's already knocked, and he can hear sounds from inside, but Snape hasn't told him to come in yet, and Harry knows better than to walk in uninvited.

"Come in!" comes a lyrical, amused voice, and Harry frowns a little as he reaches for the door handle, turning it. At his desk, Snape is resolutely ignoring his two guests: artfully arranged in two chairs are Narcissa Malfoy and Andromeda Tonks. Sat together as they are, Harry can see that they're sisters - Narcissa's eyes are a deep blue rather than brown, but they have the same heavy lids, and he can see the similarities in the curves of their jaws and their mouths.

"Hi, Dromeda," Harry says. "Mrs Malfoy."

"What do you want?" Snape demands before Harry can say anything, and Harry closes the door quietly behind him. Andromeda and Narcissa are just wearing fairly normal robes, and although Andromeda has a Muggle plastic bag in her lap, it's not really enough for him to figure out why the two of them are here. Harry hesitates for a moment nonetheless, wondering if he's interrupting something, but then he looks to Snape. He sways just slightly on his feet, but he tries to keep himself in place.

"My scar hurts. Dumbledore said to tell you if my scar was hurting." He doesn't hold back the words with Andromeda and Narcissa there - the both of them are in the Order, and while he doesn't know why they're here to see Snape, he knows that he trusts the both of them.

"He told you to inform me specifically?" Snape prompts with a sneer, and Harry has to stop himself from rolling his eyes.

He can't stop himself from dryly replying, "Not specifically, sir, but you always make me feel so safe and well looked-after, given your nurturing nature."

"Twenty points from Slytherin," Snape says as Andromeda lets out a loud belly-laugh and Narcissa stifles her snort of laughter half into her hand and half into her sister's shoulder. Even if Harry hadn't said anything, he has no doubt his Head of House would have done so out of habit. "Sit down." The two lone visitor's chairs are occupied by Snape's existing visitors, so Harry sits on the edge of a side table. Snape, very slowly, looks away from the parchment on his desk and stares Harry down.

Harry resolutely stares back.

"Is he always like this with you?" Dromeda asks, sounding proud and slightly incredulous. Where Narcissa sits straight-backed, her hands neatly on her knees, she kicks back in her chair, one ankle crossed over the other, and she grins between Harry and Snape. "I always thought they were all scared of you, Severus."

"The intelligent ones are," Snape replies in an icy tone, and Harry lets out a curse as the table snaps at left leg, sending Harry and a stack old old textbooks tumbling to the floor. He pulls himself up, piling up the copies of Advanced Potion-Making, and mutters a Reparo under his breath. The damaged leg draws itself back together, and this time Harry sits down on the damned dungeon floor, crossing his arms over his chest. The sudden movement had made his head lurch, and although Snape's wand rests on the table, a foot away from his hand, Harry knows that he somehow snapped the leg.

"Bless," Drom says, reaching out and patting the top of Harry's head, and he winces as her fingers brush his hair. The physical touch sends the strangest wave of tingling nausea through him, and he reaches to grasp at her wrist, but that's even worse: the urge to vomit is sudden, and he releases her immediately, putting his hand tightly over his mouth. "Harry, love? You alright?"

"Harry?" Narcissa asks, and Harry sits on the cold stone floor with his eyes closed tightly shut, drying to stem the broiling sickness in his stomach.

"Don't touch me," he mumbles hurriedly, "I think- I think I'm going to be-" With a quiet clank, a disused, iron cauldron is dropped beside him. Narcissa is kneeling in front of him, her eyes flickering over him with an obvious concern, and while Snape isn't showing anything as plebeian as human emotion, he has made the effort to stand. "See, Drom?" Harry croaks. "He does take care of me."

"If you miss the sides of that cauldron, Potter, we will see that I take care of your corpse." Harry laughs, but halfway through he retches, and he grabs at the edges of the cauldron before bending over it. The pain in his scar is pulling at him, and sickening waves of nausea and shivering cold run through him as he grips tightly at the black metal.

"Expecto Patronum," Harry hears Snape say, but when he opens his eyes his vision swims, and he groans as he watches the silver shape run out of the room, holding Snape's message to Dumbledore: "Come now. It's his scar."


	72. Year Four: Riddled With It

Harry retches until nothing comes up anymore, and once he begins to dry-heave, shaking in his place on the floor, Dromeda pulls the cauldron away, Vanishing its sickly contents before offering it back. Harry feels a cold sweat soaking into his robes, and he shivers violently, keeping his eyes mostly closed. He knows Narcissa and Dromeda are both moving back and forth, talking with Snape, and he feels a blanket thrown around his shoulders, but he can't concentrate enough to focus on what they're actually saying.

He feels himself pulled slowly to stand, and just the touch of Narcissa's slim, slender fingers leave a burning agony on his skin, even through the fabric of his robes. He cries out, sharply, and he stumbles slightly.

"Don't touch him, Cissy," he hears Dromeda say in a quiet, urgent voice, and she gets him into the corridor, where Dumbledore meets them. The loud, orange fabric of his robes makes Harry's eyes suddenly twinge, and he closes his eyes tightly. "You're going to fall," he hears Drom say, and he frowns, because while he feels worse than he's ever felt, he's standing.

"I am not," he hears Snape say, and when he looks, squinting at him with his blurry, teary eyes, and he sees that Snape looks a little grey, his left hand over his mouth. He sways, just slightly, and when Narcissa touches his elbow, he winces. Harry coughs, trying to blink the wetness out of his watering eyes to see Snape better, but Dumbledore murmurs something Harry can't quite make out, and gently pushes him to move down the corridor.

At the stairs, Harry feels himself lifted from the floor, and despite his mumbled, barely coherent protests and Snape's sharper, more profane ones, the both of them are levitated up to the Hogwarts infirmary on conjured stretchers. Lying pale and still on his back on one of the beds, Harry can see a blurry figure: it's only by squinting at the thick, black muss of his beard and hair that he knows it's Igor Karkaroff. He wants to ask questions, and he wants to ask what's happening, but all of a sudden the ache in his head sharpens suddenly again, and he drops against one of the beds with a hoarse scream.

Clinging tightly to the metal bedposts, he heaves in his breath, but even with his eyes open he no longer sees the infirmary swimming around him: he sees drapes of black, a sunset on the hill, and when he looks down at his hands, they're so white they're almost blue, and thick, red blood is slicked over the fingers. "Voldemort," he feels himself say, but the voice is not his own. It's high and it rings through the air and his own skull. Heaving in a gasp, he blinks desperately, and despite his panic, he tries to focus on clearing his mind of anything at all.

Blackness surrounds him when he closes his eyes, and he embraces the darkness and its lack of scent or colour or sound. He lifts himself away from the too-fast beat of his own heart and the working of his lungs, even from the agony pulsing through his head and dancing thickly over his chilled skin, and he drowns himself in darkness, sinking himself into it.

The last thing he feels is the buckle of his own knees as he drops to the floor.

* * *

Harry sits up on his bed, watching Karkaroff. His dark eyes are closed, and he lies mostly still on the bed, but every few minutes he'll violently shiver or let out a sharp, pained noise. The curtains around Snape's infirmary bed are closed, but when Harry had peeked in, he'd just seen his head of house asleep. He's not comatose like Karkaroff, and just looks like he's chosen a slightly odd place to sleep, laid on his side with one hand under the pillow and the other carded in his own hair. He breathes evenly, his expression quietly serious even while he's unconscious, and Harry had quickly crept back to his own bed and let Snape's curtain fall shut again.

The sight of Severus Snape looking so peaceful had actually unsettled him far more than Karkaroff's shaking, obviously ill form.

"What's wrong with us?" Harry asks quietly when Dumbledore slowly approaches his bed. The infirmary is empty except for the three of them, and although Harry had asked to be let out, he's not surprised Pomfrey had refused him. Sweat still soaks into his hair and drips coldly down his skin, and he has not only his own quilt but two more from other beds wrapped around his body. He sits cross-legged in the middle of the bed, facing away from Snape's curtained-off bed and watching Karkaroff intently, even as Dumbledore makes his way over and settles on the edge of Harry's bed. His hands fold neatly in his orange-draped lap, and for a few moments he watches Karkaroff in silence. "Is it contagious?"

"There is a reason we've quarantined the three of you somewhat," Dumbledore answers in a quiet voice, "I wish I could share with you every detail, Mr Potter, but I confess I'm lacking in them."

"I saw Voldemort," Harry says. "That's why I went to Snape, because my scar started hurting. I was just about to talk to him when I started feeling sick, all of a sudden." He breathes in, shifting under the insufficient warmth of his hoarded blankets and swallowing hard to stop himself from retching again. It's worse than he's ever felt - he's had colds over the years, where Madam Pomfrey will usually give you a Pepper-Up potion and fix you right up, but even the illnesses he spent locked in his cupboard to keep from passing anything onto Dudley hadn't been this bad. At any moment, he feels like he might just crumble into sweat-soaked dust, and he groans quietly, rubbing at the side of his face.

"What did you see, Harry?" Dumbledore asks. His tone is kind, and when he looks at Harry, Harry knows that the old man is taking him seriously. Despite Dumbledore's sometimes irritating calmness, Harry appreciates that he usually gives the impression he's taking what Harry says to heart.

"I was him. Voldemort. I saw things through his eyes, and said his name, but in his voice. There was blood on his hands - my hands - and he, I, was outside." He frowns, trying to remember what he'd seen in detail despite his hazy, feverish memories, but no clear visuals come to mind. "I think I saw people," Harry says. "Black robes. I didn't see any masks, though." Dumbledore nods his head, taking in the details.

"Is your scar still hurting?"

"No," Harry says, shaking his head. There's pain in every part of his body, but his scar doesn't have the same affected twinge to it anymore, and nor can he feel the utter agony of something pressing on it. "I used some of the Occlumency I knew," Harry says, in almost a whisper, "When I was in his body, I panicked, but then I cleared my mind. I haven't tried any of the other stuff, like adjusting memories or anything, but I think I pulled away."

"With your sudden sickness, Harry, I believe your mind was in a weakened state; Voldemort, too, is weak at this time." Dumbledore pauses for a moment, and then murmurs, "You have truly affected yourself to studying Occlumency, have you not, Harry? I have noticed your focus since August: it is now November, with the First Task of the Tournament looming over you, and you have not grown bored." Harry glances at the old man, and then he shrugs his shoulders.

"It's hard, but it's easy to fit in. I can work on it before bed. It's not like other stuff," he adds, thinking about trying to get in the time to learn new hexes, or, most of all, the more complex mental exercises he has to do for his Animagus transformation - let alone the potions.

"Which other stuff would that be?" Dumbledore asks, and when Harry looks at him, the old man's gaze twinkles. He knows. Harry's sure that he knows, even without using Legilimency or something - he knows what Harry and Sirius have been talking about, but it doesn't make him feel threatened, and he doesn't get defensive like he would with Snape or McGonagall. He just grins.

"Oh, you know, Professor. Just school things." Dumbledore gives a slow nod of his head, smiling innocently, and despite Harry feeling sick as a dog, he keeps on smiling a little as Dumbledore stands and slowly leaves the room. He coughs slightly, shivering. Talking to Dumbledore had distracted him for a little while, and now with no one awake to talk to, Harry is left with his own thoughts and the sickly feeling permeating his body. He lies down, making his body small to curl it under the thick quilts, and he presses his head into his pillows.

* * *

"You alright, sir?" Harry asks when Snape pushes open his curtain and stands on the floor. His head of house's hair is lightly tousled around his head, but it's nothing like Harry's after going to sleep, and Snape gives him a stare. Madam Pomfrey had dressed him in the same infirmary pyjamas as everyone wears, and the sight of Snape in a blue and white striped nightshirt is just bizarre. Harry's never even seen the man in an outfit that wasn't at least eighty percent black cloth; Snape's feet are bare and inhumanly pale, and Harry can see pink scars on his feet and around his ankles.

Snape doesn't answer.

He shuts the curtain closed again, and when he next comes out it's with his usual robes on, his hair brushed back from his head, but Harry still feels terrible, and he expects Snape does too. His skin has an even more unhealthy pallor than usual, tinged green, and despite his having slept so naturally there are dark circles under his eyes.

Harry watches him from under his blankets, and he expects Snape to leave, but is surprised when the other man murmurs a diagnostic spell he hasn't heard before. Snape reaches out, and Harry braces himself, but the touch doesn't hurt him like it had the other night: Snape's fingers are pleasantly warm as his knuckles touch the sweat-slick skin of Harry's forehead.

"Ninety nine degrees Fahrenheit," he declares, and Harry shoots him a look, pulling away from his hand.

"You cannot tell that from touching my head," Harry objects, and adds, "That's bull." Snape's lip twitches, and he seems mildly amused as he steps away from Harry's bed, drawing his silver watch from his pocket and glancing over it. Harry still can't read a wizard's watch - he's looked at those of the older Slytherins, reading their complex clock faces, but they're not as simple as a normal, Muggle watch.

"Severus! Get back into bed, immediately!"

"I will return to my office, Poppy," Snape says in a quiet, measured tone. Madam Pomfrey looks nothing less than furious.

"You are not fit to roam-"

"I will hardly roam, Poppy: I will return to my office, and then to my quarters, to bed."

"You are ill-"

"Indeed."

"You need bed rest."

"I quite agree."

"In the hospital wing!"

"Here, we diverge." Madam Pomfrey turns red with anger, but she doesn't actually stop Snape as he neatly turns on his heel and exits the hospital wing, stepping out of the room and making his way silently down the corridor. As if to make up for having lost one of her patients, she comes to fuss over Harry, taking his temperature with an old-fashioned thermometer that hovers in Harry's ear. "Higher than I'd like," she murmurs when she plucks it from the air, and Harry looks up at her face.

"Ninety seven degrees Fahrenheit?" She furrows her brow.

"Precisely." Harry laughs, and lies back for a little while, drinking the bitter potion Pomfrey presses against his lips. Karkaroff begins to stir, soon enough, and Harry sees when he sits up in bed that his sweat has soaked through the flannel fabric of the pyjamas, leaving him shivering with the cold moisture. When he sees Harry watching him, he shoves the curtains around his bed closed with a sharp growl, and Harry closes his eyes to try and sleep.

* * *

"How long was I in there?" Harry asks as he pokes half-heartedly at his porridge.

"Four days," Blaise answers cleanly, reaching for the honey and drizzling a little over Harry's breakfast. "Snape left after two. Karkaroff's still in there, right?"

"He didn't look good," Harry murmurs, shaking his head slightly. After Karkaroff had dragged his curtains shut, Harry had only caught glimpses of him, but when the headmaster wasn't sleeping fitfully, he was vomiting, and he still couldn't keep any food down when Harry had left the hospital wing. He looks across the room, where he can see the furry edge of Viktor Krum's cape: he's speaking almost animatedly with Hermione over a breakfast of various fruits, and Harry smiles a little. "Krum seems to be enjoying his respite."

Blaise chuckles. "He's been spending a lot of time with Granger." Blaise's foot hooks around Harry's under the table, and Harry smiles a little "Want to take a little detour before we go to Potions?"

"We'll be late," Harry murmurs, shifting his boot against Blaise's.

"It's not Snape," Blaise says. "Hayworth's friend - Sartorius - has been covering his lessons while he's been ill. It'll be fine." Harry grins a little, thinking of the new spells Sirius had sent him. Three had been more practical - two contraceptive charms and one for hiding hickeys - but another had been a little more... Fun.

"Yeah, alright," Harry says. He still feels a little weak, but he feels much better than he had yesterday, and the idea of a little private time with the other Slytherin is wonderful. "Sure."


	73. Year Four: The Bench And The Willow Tree

"Is there a reason, Mr Potter, Mr Zabini, that the two of you are nine minutes late for my lesson?" Harry hovers in the doorway, tongue stuck in his mouth, and he inwardly curses. Snape's eyes still look dark, but he's standing up and glaring at the two of them.

"Harry had a slight wardrobe malfunction, Professor, caught the back of his robes on the stairs," Blaise says smoothly. He coughs, delicately, and then murmurs, "I was assisting him in repairing the, ah, rip. Didn't really want to come to Potions with his modesty on show." There's a chuckle or two around the classroom, and Harry feels his cheeks burn, but it's a better excuse than the truth. He's just glad Sirius had taught him that spell for hiding hickeys.

"Sorry, sir," Harry says. When Snape meets his gaze, Harry does his best to clear his mind, and says, "Even if it wasn't embarrassing, I'd think it'd be a bit dangerous with potions about, you know. Don't want any Bubotuber pus on my sensitive areas." Snape doesn't wince. Harry thinks a wince would be a bit too close to a normal human response for Snape, but his eyes do narrow slightly, and there's the slightest wrinkle to his nose, just for a second.

"Sit down," Snape says, rolling his eyes, but to Harry's surprise he doesn't take any points off them, and he settles at a desk with Blaise, where they both set out their cauldrons. Hermione looks like she's trying not to laugh as she stops Neville from killing them all, and it's obvious from his mildly put-out expression that he thinks she's laughing at him. They'll make it up to Longbottom soon enough, Harry thinks, and concentrates on his potion.

"Mr Potter," Snape says as Harry gets up to leave, and Harry frowns at him, but he stays as the last of the Gryffindors filter out of the room. Harry stands before Snape's desk, and Snape says, cleanly, "Detention with me on Saturday, at seven."

"What? Why?" Snape meets Harry's gaze.

"Wardrobe malfunction?"

"Wardrobe malfunction," Harry agrees. "Tore the back of my robes, sir, had all my bits on display." Snape remains unconvinced.

"While I have no doubt that your bits were on display, Potter, you will take detention with me at seven o'clock on Saturday. Mr Zabini will be joining you. Get out." Despite himself, Harry can't help but smile a little as he exits the Potions classroom - Snape had known what they'd been doing, and while it's horrifying that Snape knows, it also makes Harry want to laugh. He has a free period now, and so he makes his way meanderingly up to the Great Hall: Cedric waves at him once he enters, and Harry steps over to the Hufflepuff table.

"Nine days, Harry!" Cedric says, clapping his hands together. He has a disconcertingly wide grin on his handsome face. "Are you ready?"

"To die? No," Harry replies, and Cedric laughs, clapping Harry's shoulder affectionately.

"You'll be fine," Cedric says in his ultra-serious, earnest way, and Harry gives him a slightly awkward smile as he makes his way over to the Gryffindor table and sits next to Hermione.

"I promise, Neville, I wasn't laughing at you," Hermione says, and Neville sits still across from her, looking down at the tabletop. They're the only ones sat at this part of the table, and Neville looks sad to say the least. Harry glances up and down, seeing no one in sight, and Harry elects to make a decision.

"Neville," Harry murmurs, leaning forwards slightly and saying seriously, "She was laughing because Blaise and I were in a broom cupboard. There wasn't a wardrobe malfunction." Neville's head shoots up, and he stares at Harry, his eyes wide and his mouth open in a round O of shock. Beside him, Hermione seems surprised that Harry had told the other boy, but he trusts Neville: the other boy isn't exactly popular with his schoolmates, but he's never struck Harry as a bad or cruel boy.

"Oh," Neville says, awkwardly.

"Keep it under your hat, would you?" Harry asks smoothly, and Neville gives a shy, little nod of his head. His face is the face of a boy who isn't used to being entrusted with secrets, and Harry feels the slightest inkling of sympathy. Then, Ginny joins them, and Neville's expression becomes warmer, more contented. He smiles at Ginny like she's his only friend, and Harry makes a mental note to maybe include Neville a bit more, where they can. Or- well, maybe not: he's a nice boy, but he's not exactly an exciting one.

They settle into more usual conversation, chatting as they wait for lunchtime: Ginny's upset about not being able to try out for the Quidditch team, but at least she'll be able to next year. Harry's seen her on a broom, and he has no doubt that she'll win the Seeker position easily, and Ron had been great in front of the Quidditch hoop on the Weasleys' pitch.

"Are you excited for the First Task, Harry?" Ginny asks, and Harry considers the question. Is he excited? He'd made a few dry jokes to Cedric and to the Slytherin lads about being killed, but he's at least reasonably certain he isn't going to die, and a part of him is looking forward to it. The idea of the crowd is daunting, but it's also exciting: it sends a little thrill through him, to think of all those people watching him and Cedric as they face whatever the First Task is made up of.

"I think so, yeah. Scared, but excited," Harry says, and Ginny grins at him. Now that she's gotten over the crush she'd had a few years back, it's great to talk to her - Ginny has a wicked humour, and it's obvious to Harry that Fred and George are her brothers just from the way she acts.

"What do you think it'll be?" she asks, giving him a wink. "A dragon?"

"Okay, now I'm less excited, more scared," Harry says, and she laughs. Neville smiles slightly too, and Hermione chuckles.

"Surely we'd have known if it was going to be dragons," she says. "You can't exactly put them in a cupboard until the task, can you?" Harry grins a little, and he follows Neville's gaze as he looks over Harry's head, meeting the gaze of Luna Lovegood. Luna settles slowly on Harry's other side, and Harry smells the rhubarb from her necklace.

"Hello," Luna says. Her hair is braided behind her head today, and in her hair are flowers with ugly, thorny stems that keep them stuck to the braid. Their petals are a sickly brown, and when Harry inhales, they actually smell quite good - like hard-boiled sweets in a jar, surprisingly sugary.

"Hey," Harry says as the others offer their greetings, and Luna offers him a smile; like Harry, she doesn't really join the conversation as Ginny, Neville and Hermione begin to talk about practical Herbology, and the two of them are mostly silent as the other three begin to talk. Harry enjoys Herbology: the animated, often argumentative plants are polar opposites to the dull, homogenous flowers Aunt Petunia had always wanted Harry to plant in her garden, and while Herbology comes with its share of bruises and odd injuries, Harry enjoys it.

But no one enjoys Herbology like Neville Longbottom.

The Gryffindor is transformed as he speaks, gesticulating with his green-stained, calloused hands. "And it's so amazing, honestly - you'd think the Venomous Tentacula would be a vicious plant, but it can be almost affectionate with the right care and diet!"

"But it's a plant," Hermione says. "I mean- it doesn't have a brain, Neville, it's not like an animal."

"Magical plants don't need brains," Neville says, and on any other subject Harry knows the other boy would never have contradicted Hermione so easily and so smoothly. "These plants have evolved under a magical strain, Hermione: thinking of a Venomous Tentacula like it's not that different to a daisy is like saying nymphs are just like humans, but green and without any clothes on." Ginny laughs, and Neville remembers himself enough to flush slightly pink. "They're not the same," he says again, shrugging his shoulders.

"Do you have any plants at home, Neville?" Harry asks, and he blinks, seeming surprised at the question.

"A few," he says, "But nothing like here. I love the greenhouses here - Professor Sprout has such a good range of plants, and they're all so great. I'd love to plants like this at home." Neville gives a dreamy little sigh, and Harry smiles at him.

"I don't know about the plants," Harry says, "but I wouldn't mind a library like we've got at home. What would you take home if you could, Ginny?"

"My bed," Ginny says decisively, and all of them laugh, before she turns to Luna. "What about you?"

"Me?" Luna asks, raising her thin eyebrows and tilting her head just slightly to the side. Her skin is the colour of porcelain, and her lips are the softest pastel pink Harry's ever seen: she's the polar opposite to Blaise, with her pretty features and her strong hands, her dreamy voice and her deep, blue eyes, but something about her makes Harry's breath catch in his throat. "I think I'd take home the Giant Squid, if I only had the space." The latter is said with such a mournful honesty that Harry momentarily wonders how to react, but then Luna smiles, and he hears Neville and Ginny laugh.

"I'm going to walk some. Would anyone care to join me?" Luna asks as she stands from the table, a half-eaten carrot in her left hand. Harry stares at her, and doesn't actually respond until Hermione shoves him in the back. The question hadn't been specifically directed at him, but Luna meets his gaze as she takes a small bite of her carrot.

"Yeah, sure," he says, and he scrambles to stand. He has another free now, before three lessons in the afternoon, so time is no issue: they walk in silence through the courtyard and out onto the grounds. The grass is wet with dew, but the cold isn't unbearable, and as they walk down the hill, Harry spares the arena a glance.

"I shouldn't be frightened, Harry," Luna says lightly, apparently taking note of his gaze. "I imagine if you are to die, it won't be at least until the Third Task." Harry snorts.

"Cheers, Luna," Harry says, and he looks down at her boots. Unlike Harry's plain, black ones, hers are a silvery blue, and he recognizes the dragonhide. "Are they from a Swedish Short-Snout?"

"Yes," Luna answers. "Dad did an article about the secret societies of cobblers last September." She looks down at her boots, and Harry wonders how much smaller her feet are than his: wizards and witches don't have sizes on their clothes or their shoes, but he'd estimate her feet at possibly a three or a four, and he wears a six. "Do you like them?"

"Oh, yeah," Harry says. "They go with your eyes."

"They look best on me when I'm not wearing anything else," Luna confides, and Harry coughs, but Luna doesn't actually seem like she's being flirtatious. It's just a fact, and she's stated it. "Come this way," she says, and Harry lets her take his hand. Hermione's hands are soft, as are those of Draco and Blaise, but Luna's hands have callouses on the palms and scars around the fingers.

"Do you climb trees a lot?" Harry asks as she leads him into the Forest, and she nods her head absently.

"Oh, yes. I break bones all the time."

"Ditto," Harry says, and she smiles.

"Of course, I break nails, too," she says, and she shakes her head slightly as the breeze catches her hair and the petals of the sugary flowers. "Not to mention bubbles." Luna leads Harry through the Forest paths like she has them memorized, stepping smoothly over this fallen branch here or this ditch there, and when she stops, Harry is quiet. A brook babbles quietly before them, water running in three streams through the clearing, and a willow tree bows over a wooden bench.

"Oh," Harry says quietly, stepping over the book and towards it. The bench is carved of a purple wood Harry doesn't recognize, and it's covered in ornate designs of ivy leaves and red flowers. Harry sits slowly down on it, and when he turns to look, Luna has slipped off her dragonhide boots and is stepping barefoot into the brook, her robes hiked up around her knees and her wand behind her ear.

Harry sees the silver bodies of fish shoot through the water, dozens of them circling her feet before heading further downstream, and Luna smiles her self-contented smile as she makes her way over to Harry, sitting with him on the bench. They sit together as the minutes tick by, and the longer they sit still, the more Harry sees around them. A small, lilac frog clambers onto a rock, letting out a noise that's more like a caw than a ribbit, and all manner of birds with colourful plumage and bright eyes fly past. Most exciting, though, is the unicorn that steps slowly forwards, leaning to drink from the brook before it slowly makes its way off again.

"I come here when I- Oh, look at that." She points, and Harry follows her finger. For a second, he doesn't see anything, but then he realizes: in an ash tree, three bowtruckles are dancing back and forth across a branch together, and Harry laughs. They don't seem to notice Harry and Luna at all, and Harry smiles. "It's ever so good, in the night time. The nymphs will dance then."

"Nymphs?" Harry repeats, glancing at her.

"And in the spring, all sorts of funny things come down the stream: big fish, frogs, toads. Even a feathered boa." Luna sighs, shaking her head. "It hadn't been very happy about all those feathers, I don't think. I thought it looked quite nice."

"A snake with feathers," Harry says. "Sounds good to me." Luna turns to him, and her expression is pensive as she considers his face. Her eyelashes are thick, but they're such a light blonde they're almost silver, and her blue eyes are like water. They seem almost transparently blue. "What?" Harry asks.

"You've ever such a lot of Wrackspurts around your head, you know, Harry," Luna says, and then she kisses him. He leans into the kiss, going slowly, opening his mouth just slightly. Luna's hands settle on Harry's hips as she leans into him, and Harry is grateful for the slight height he's gained over the summer, so that she leans up and into him. The kiss isn't hurried, and nor is it awkward, like kissing Hermione - it's slow, and measured, and Luna's lips taste of... Parsnips? "Do you like my lipgloss?" Harry stares at her, and then he grins.

"Did you make it yourself?"

"My own recipe." Harry dips to kiss Luna again, cupping the side of her cheek, their eyes closed, their noses brushing each other. Luna's hair tickles the side of his face, and Harry finds he likes the sensation. They kiss for what feels like hours, and when Luna finally stands and says they'll be late for class, Harry is reluctant to stand from the bench and leave the curtain of the willow tree.

As they walk, hand in hand, Harry thinks of Transfiguration, and how he'll be sat next to Blaise. A thick, guilty feeling twists in his belly, and he wonders if he should have come down to the romantic little clearing, with its bench and its willow tree.

"I do hope you don't die, Harry," Luna says, and she brings his hand to her mouth, drawing her lips over the backs of his knuckles. The skin tingles. He feels even guiltier.

"I'll try not to, Luna," he promises, and he walks with her up to the courtyard again.


	74. Year Four: Charming Snakes

Harry lies back on his bed, the curtains drawn around him. Above him, his candle burns, and beside him is Winston, Theodore's cat. Winston's sleek, inky body is sprawled on the sheets, his paws in the air and Harry's cheek warm against his furry belly. The cat's got an obscenely powerful purr, and Harry can feel it vibrating through his skin. Cats like Harry. Most of the cats in the castle will approach him and let him give them a scratch behind the ear - barring Mrs Norris and a pure white monster of a short-hair that wanders the dungeons now and then, Harry likes every cat at Hogwarts.

But only Winston will clamber into his bed and purr beside him when he can't find Theo instead.

The curtains shift, and Harry reluctantly opens his eyes. Blaise slips into Harry's bed, barefoot and wearing just his pyjamas, and he leans forwards, hands either side of Harry's hips.

"Not now," Harry says, leaning away from the other boy's mouth. He's been thinking about his kiss with Luna since this morning, and he hasn't told Blaise about Luna - nor has he told Luna about Blaise. Blaise frowns at him, tilting his head slightly to the side as he examines Harry's face, and then he shrugs. No concern shows in his face, but Harry knows the other boy feels it, and he does his best to ignore it.

"You worried about the Tournament?" Harry feels a slight lump in his throat, and he shifts slightly, sitting cross-legged with Blaise across from him. Winston stands up, kneading his paws painfully into Harry's knee, and Harry absently scratches the cat's ears.

"Not really," Harry says. It's maybe the tenth time he's been asked today, and with each repetition he's felt less excitement, less panic, less feeling where the looming First Task is concerned. "Are you?"

"No," Blaise answers. It's a lie. Harry knows it's a lie like he knows water is wet. "If it's just that you don't want the cat watching, Harry, I can-"

"I'm just not in the mood," Harry says, his tone a little stiff, and Blaise won't display concern, but he will display offence. His jaw shifts, clenching slightly as he looks at Harry, but Harry doesn't say anything. He turns his head to the side, looking at the cat instead of at Blaise's face, and he wonders if he's the sort of person to date two people at once. He isn't even- all he's done is kiss Luna, as yet, and yet... "Sorry."

Something in Blaise's expression changes, and he leans back.

"Good night, Harry," he says, with an edge of something cold in his tone, and he slips out of Harry's bed. Sighing, Harry lies down again, extinguishing his candle with a muttered command and burying his face in Winston's fur. Winston doesn't mind. Winston wouldn't mind if Harry pet every cat in the castle, so long as he slept in the same bed and Winston could still climb over his face in the middle of the night.

* * *

Harry spends the next week avoiding Luna and Blaise both. He goes to classes early and to bed late, wandering the castle at night and lingering in corridors when he knows Blaise or Luna will be crossing his path. One night, he even finds a bedroom on the seventh floor, and he sleeps there to keep from having to go to the Slytherin common room - unfortunately, he can't find it again the next day, and he writes it off as one of the Hogwarts things that only appears on Thursdays, or between the hours of eight and nine, or because you've stepped on twelve flagstones in exactly the right sequence.

Despite the pains he takes to keep himself isolated, though, he's well-rested on the morning of the First Task, and he meets Cedric in the Hogwarts courtyard. Down the hill, Harry can see hundreds of people filtering in through the gates and being lead into the arena's numerous stands, and he swallows slightly. The idea of that sort of audience is...

Well. It could be worse, actually. Harry feels excitement, his heart beginning to beat a little faster, but it just makes him want to bounce on his heels: by no means is there the slightest inkling of fear in him.

"You ready?" Cedric asks, and Harry can see by the grin on his face that he's feeling exactly like Harry right now, primed and excited to get into the arena to do something.

"Fuck no," Harry answers, and Cedric laughs as they jog together down to the arena. Through a wooden set of doors, they're brought into an antechamber beneath some of the stands. Fleur and Maxime are talking rapidly in French, and Harry guesses from the way Fleur keeps nodding her head as she speaks, her fists clenched, that Maxime is quizzing her - Hermione does the same thing when she demands help with her revision. Krum sits alone: Karkaroff had only been able to leave the hospital wing the night before, and Harry suspects he's barely up to spectating, let alone pushing his competitor.

"Hello!" Ludo Bagman says once all of them are inside, and he claps his hands together, grinning. He's got a face that might have been handsome once, but now it's ruddy, and there's something in Bagman's grin that's ugly to Harry. "Now, Champions, your task is simple: climb the pyramid and retrieve the mirror." He draws a set of three strws from his pocket, putting them out. "Shortest straw goes first, and longest last." Cedric draws the longest straw. Krum draws the shortest with a grim expression and a slow, decisive nod of his head, and Fleur sits down as Krum leaves.

Fleur doesn't seem nervous in the least, but she doesn't seem excited either. If anything, she seems bored. Harry can hear the screams and cheers of the crowd outside, echoing through the huge stadium, and he breathes in, shifting on his feet. For forty minutes, they stay in their places, listening to the crowd as they yell and cheer and laugh: they know he's grabbed his prize when the crowd goes silent for a few long seconds, holding their breaths, before breaking out into a huge, ridiculously loud cheer that must ring through Scotland, let alone the school.

"Good luck," Harry says when Fleur stands, and she grins at him.

"No need, Harry," she says, and pats his cheek before she runs out and into the arena to loud cheers from the crowd. Fleur takes only twenty five minutes, and Cedric and Harry share a look as the silence comes once more, before the loud cheer.

"Well then," Harry says, holding out his wand, and the both of them walk out into the stadium together. Harry might die, or he might not, and either way, he's buzzing with feeling.

"And our final Champions, hailing from Hogwarts, are Cedric Diggory and Harry Potter!" The announcer has his wand held to his own throat, no doubt using a Sonorus Charm - Harry guesses the little antechamber blocks out amplified voices, just so that later champions don't get an unfair advantage. He and Cedric run up to the starting platform, and when Harry sees the challenge laid out before them, he begins to laugh.

He laughs long and hard, bending over at the knee and smacking the side of his own thigh, and when he stands up properly, Cedric is glancing between him and the pyramid before them, an expression of horror on his face. The Mayan-style pyramid spans across the whole of the arena's dirt floor, and on every single level are more and more of the exact same creature: snakes. "Why are you laughing?" Cedric hisses, and Harry claps his hand on the other boy's back.

"Those are snakes, Cedric," Harry says. "And I'm a Parseltongue." Realization dawns on Cedric's face, and the two of them approach the pyramid's base. _"Excuse me! Would any of you like some rats?"_

* * *

"And with an utterly legendary three minutes and thirty nine seconds, with forty nine points awarded, the Hogwarts Champions are the winners of the First Task!" Harry grins as he grasps the side of the silver mirror, lifting it high with Cedric holding the other side, and the two of them exchange a grin. Harry lingers as Cedric heads back into the antechamber with the mirror in hand, and he feels the euphoria sing through his chest. Of all the tasks it could have been - dragons, Boggarts, dementors, monsters - and it was snakes.

Harry watches as a beautiful, rainbow-scaled snake begins to slowly make its way down the side of the pyramid. It has a thick plumage of red feathers as a crest, and Harry kneels on the ground as it comes towards him. " _Why,"_ the snake asks, " _Is there noise?"_

 _"It was a competition,"_ Harry explains, bowing his head slightly and letting the snake coil itself warmly around his body. It's at least as thick as his thigh, and Harry guesses the Phoenix Snake is forty foot long at the least, but he doesn't mind: it had complained about the cold when Harry and Cedric had reached the top of the pyramid, and Harry feels a little bad for it. He strokes over the feathers on its neck, feeling its heavy weight on his body. _"They were excited that Cedric and I won. You helped us win._ " The snake hisses. Harry gleans from context that it's meant to be like a derogative snort. _"You're so handsome."_

 _"Yes,"_ the Phoenix Snake agrees, basking in Harry's heat and compliments, and Harry watches as handlers coax different snakes into different containers. _"I will be returned to my homeland?"_

 _"Yeah, soon,"_ Harry promises. _"Egypt, right?"_

 _"Yesssss,"_ it says, and Harry laughs as it flicks its tongue over his eyebrow. _"You taste bad."_

 _"Good,"_ Harry says.

"Hey, hey there," says a grinning man with copper-brown skin and a thick scar down one of his cheeks. "You're the Parseltongue?"

"Yeah," Harry answers. "I'd stand and shake your hand, but this one's kind of heavy." The man laughs. He's American, Harry thinks, but where in America he's from Harry has no idea. The only American wizard he knows anything about is Chad Arnett.

 _"It is Takoda. Have him take me."_

"It wants you to take it," Harry says, and he leans forwards, letting the snake slither from him and wind its way around Takoda's neck. Despite its hefty weight, Takoda doesn't so much as bend his knees, and Harry can't help but admire the strength that must be involved. "It's beautiful."

"Oh, yes," Takoda agrees. "By the way, I'm-"

"Takoda," Harry says. "Yeah, it knows your name." The man laughs again, and he kisses the Phoenix Snake on the nose. Its tongue flicks over his nose in retort, and Harry smiles, stroking over its colourful scales. "Do you work in the snake sanctuary?"

"Yes, I do," he says, nodding his head. "You should give us a call when you finish school, kid. It'd be great to have a Parseltongue around." Takoda walks off, and Harry is left slightly pensive as he steps out of the arena: the crowd has mostly been ushered out, the last of the audience meandering towards the Hogwarts gates, and Harry gives Sirius and Remus a wave as they keep walking.

He can't believe it.

He and Cedric did it - not only is Harry alive, but they're first place. He can't help but grin so widely he feels like he might split open his face as he walks into the castle, thinking about the mirror, and the Triwizard Cup, and Phoenix Snakes, and the feeling of victory. He feels so good, he forgets to feel bad when Blaise grabs him by the collar and pulls him into an empty classroom: Blaise prioritizes their private celebration over the party that will no doubt shake the dungeons, and Harry lets himself enjoy it. He'll worry about Luna in the morning.

Is he a bad person? He wonders this as he drags his teeth over Blaise's neck, pressing his thigh between the other boy's legs and grinding against him. Is he bad? Duplicitous? Does he deserve this? Does he deserve anything?

"I kissed Luna Lovegood," he blurts against Blaise's lips.

"Okay," Blaise says. "Let's get back to me."

"What?"

"I don't care," Blaise says, enunciating each and every syllable. "Now, Harry, please. Suck my cock."

"No, no, wait-" Harry says, and he puts his hands on Blaise's shoulders. Blaise rolls his eyes. "Is that- you don't care?"

"I couldn't possibly care less," Blaise says. "Now, please, let us celebrate your victory, and-"

"But I kissed her! While I've been kissing you!"

"I'm sure I would have noticed, were that the case." Harry stares at him, studying Blaise's face, and Blaise asks, "Is this why you were being funny the other day?" Harry doesn't need to nod for Blaise to see the silent confirmation in his face. "Potter, look. We're men. This isn't cheating - it's not the same. I don't know what those Muggles have taught you, but this arrangement... It's purely physical. Seeking out a romantic connection with a girl is to be expected. Perhaps a better girl than Lovegood, but a girl nonetheless."

"But-"

"Stop," Blaise orders. "Either one of our mouths is put to work, or I'm exiting this cupboard." Harry hesitates, just for a second, and then he leans in, kissing Blaise on the mouth. He does it solidly, pouring his heart and his lingering euphoria into the embrace, and when Blaise draws away, he says in a slightly dreamy tone, "Not what I had in mind, but nonetheless quite satisfying. For that, my friend, you can come first."

Harry leans back against the wall, closing his eyes, and doesn't think about Luna as Blaise pushes up his robes.


	75. Year Four: The Looming Ball

The store cupboard at the bottom of the Astronomy Tower is the perfect base for Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes. Sat at a desk on one edge of the room, Hermione counts that week's earnings, and on each of the room's now clean shelves are stacks of merchandise: Skiving Snackboxes, fireworks, fake wands, owl order forms for Wizarding Delights, and even posters of Harry rolled into tubes and kept tied with twine. The room is of a modest size, and with four chairs, a desk and the shelves everywhere, it's just right for them to conduct business out of the way of the rest of the school, with privacy assured. The only ones to come in and out are Harry, Hermione, Lee Jordan and the twins.

Hermione sorts the coins quickly into piles of Galleons, Sickles, and Knuts. She does it with a silent, focused efficiency, and Harry takes the stacks of coins in tens, dropping them into the moneybox that's to go to Gringotts that evening. The two of them are waiting for the twins, and for the meantime they're just counting what money has come in that week: Hermione had organized a schedule at the beginning of the year for money to go to Gringotts on Saturdays.

The moneybox is interesting to Harry: it's a round, silvery ball with a leather loop at its top, and if Harry puts his eye right to the orb's surface, he can see the coins stacking in circles inside. On its outside it proclaims its contents in Knuts, Sickles and Galleons, and on its base is its serial number and the name of the goblin that had made it: Redkey. The Gringotts moneyboxes can't be opened by anyone but a Gringotts goblin, and despite the weight of the coins, it weighs barely anything at all.

"Okay, that's everything that's going," Hermione decides, setting aside the shrapnel they're keeping at Hogwarts. "What's it at?"

"For this week," Harry says, "Twenty Galleons, forty Sickles, ninety Knuts." He sets the moneybox on the desk as Hermione notes it down in her accounts book with a quill, and Harry can't help but smile a little. "You enjoy this, don't you?"

"Running a business? Yes!" Hermione has a satisfied grin on her face.

"No," Harry says, shaking his head. "Being an accountant." Hermione sticks her tongue out at him, and Harry laughs, turning his head as he hears the knock on the stone. He hisses out an open, and Fred and George quickly come into the little room, the stone sliding shut behind them. "What's wrong?" Fred has a foul expression twisting his face, and George just looks resigned. He hands Harry a letter, flopping into one of the wooden chairs they'd pilfered for their office, but Fred stays standing, drumming his fingers irritably on the desk.

Ludo Bagman's handwriting is barely legible, but Harry can make out some phrases - "just can't oblige", "oh so sorry", "that's just how things go", and he frowns, furrowing his brow.

"We bet all of our savings at the World Cup," George says tiredly, rubbing at the side of his face. "On Ireland winning, but Krum catching the Snitch."

"God," Hermione says, seeming impressed. Despite her faux-disapproval for gambling, Harry knows that she loves a good bet, and he suppresses the urge to laugh. "How much did you bet?" Fred slams his hand down on the desk, and Hermione arches an eyebrow. "That much?"

"We've been hounding him since the match," Fred says, tone full of acid. "He keeps saying he hasn't got the funds, and that he can't oblige, but he won't even give us our original bet back, the bastard. I just want to-" Fred holds up his hands, clenching them into fists, and George shakes his head, taking the parchment back from Harry. "We're earning more money now than we had, selling everything, but it's still-"

"No, it's an honour thing," Harry says, shaking his head. "If he was taking bets, he should have honoured the win." This is only another reason to add to Harry's list of why to hate Bagman, and he frowns slightly, crossing is arms over his chest. "You could drop a tip to Skeeter. She'd love to disgrace someone so involved in the Tournament."

"We don't want any reason for that hag to get any bonuses," George says as Fred comes around the desk, leaning over Hermione's shoulder to look in the accounts book. Fred's sour mood seems to dissipate a little bit, if not by much, and he reaches for the pad in the corner of the room. It's a Muggle A3 sketchpad, with plain pieces of paper, and the first thirty pages are full of complex, brightly coloured diagrams of future WWW products. Harry's fascinated by most of them - there are plans for breeding Puffskeins, for making hats and scarves with protective spells weaved into their cloth, for love potions and daydreams and all kinds of things. Fred and George are geniuses. After all, this is the sketchpad they've not finished yet - in the corner are six more that are full of diagrams and notes.

"Me and Harry added a few things today," Hermione says, and George looks at her, a bright smile on his face. Hermione raises her chin, looking pleased with herself, and Fred sets the book on the floor, turning to the latest pages. There are a few simple notes of Harry's that are just business plans rather than actual products - notes on the cost of hiring Colin to take a few architectural shots of the castle and then selling them as postcards (as well as an explanation of what postcards are, as the wizarding world doesn't yet use them) as well as on selling specialized ribbons, badges and the like to customize one's Hogwarts robes, like Cho Chang does - but Hermione's diagrams are more like Fred and George's, albeit without the use of so much coloured ink.

"Oh, I like this," Fred says, tracing the animated image of a knitted bobble hat changing colours, thanks to its enchanted yarn, and he takes a quill, crossing out some of Hermione's notes on the charms and adjusting them. Harry and Hermione both lean forwards to watch him, and while Fred doesn't actually offer explanations as to what his adjustments are doing, Harry expects a lot of it is to do with how long the enchantments will last once embedded in the yarn.

The next page had been Hermione's idea, but the notes are in Harry's handwriting - she'd been too excited, walking back and forth and calculating prices, to actually sit down and write.

"Oh, Merlin," George says, and the both of them lean over the page.

"The proprietors of Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes are proud to present...

Hogwarts: A Guide."

Harry hadn't enchanted animations into any of the diagrams, but it's a very stripped-down version of the Marauder's Map. The only people that would be marked on the map would be the individuals buying the product (and, for an extra two Galleon charge, their toad, cat or owl). Synchronized to class schedules, it would tell students which classes are in session, as well as holding the office hours of staff, and Harry had written down the four common rooms, as well as the Kitchens, to include directions to.

"Sirius and Remus have said they'll help us out," Harry says, and Fred and George look at him and Hermione as if Harry's just declared he's going to start growing Galleons on a tree in Hagrid's garden. "When I go back to Grimmauld Place for the holidays, I thought we'd start work."

"You can't go back for the holidays," Fred points out. "What about the Yule Ball?" Harry blinks at him.

"The what?" All three of them are staring at Harry.

"Harry," Hermione says, "You know how we were meant to bring dress robes for the year?"

"Yeah," Harry says.

"That's so we can go to the Yule Ball. It's on Christmas Day - it's a big celebration, with the Triwizard Champions at the middle of it. You, Fleur, Viktor and Cedric have to open up the dance." He thinks of Daphne, Pansy and Blaise chatting that morning about dress robes, and dancing partners, and dances. He thinks of Lavender Brown and Parvati Patil giggling over dance steps in the Great Hall. He thinks of the plum-red dress robes he has in his trunk, which he had utterly forgotten about.

"Shit," he says, closing his eyes, as George says affectionately, "You're an idiot, aren't you, Harry?"

* * *

"Hello, Harry," Luna says, sitting beside him at the lunch table.

"Hi," Harry says, trying his best not to be awkward about it. On the Hufflepuff table, where he's sat beside Hannah Abbot, Harry can see Neville glaring daggers at him. Luna takes a piece of lettuce, shredding it into small squares with her knife and fork. It's a dedicated exercise, and once every inch of it is in pieces, she pours a little vinegar over it and begins to eat. "How are you, Luna?"

"Oh, fine," she says, looking into the middle distance. "I've misplaced a scarf, unfortunately, but I'm sure it will come back to me. How are you?"

"I'm fine too," Harry says. Neville is staring at him, now, his jaw clenched, and while Harry has no doubt he could beat the other boy in a duel or a physical fight, he doesn't really want Neville to challenge him to either - he wishes he hadn't told Neville about him and Blaise. "Er, look, about- going for a walk-"

"Would you like to?" Luna asks, raising her eyebrows slightly.

"Yes," Harry murmurs, "But-"

"Oh, good," Luna says. "There aren't so many Wrackspurts around your head today, you know, Harry."

"Aren't there?" Harry asks weakly, and he shuts himself up with a piece of his sandwich.

* * *

Harry walks slowly through the dungeons, feeling the tingle in his lips. Having abandoned her parsnip flavouring for the day, Luna's lipgloss had tasted of mint, and it had made Harry's lips tingle coldly when they'd kissed. It sounds odd, but the sensation is actually great.

Harry has to hope Luna doesn't hate him by the time the year is through - he's going to ask Fred and George if her recipes would be good for the shop.

"Blaise," Harry asks when he comes into the Slytherin common room, "Could you come help me with this Charms homework?" It had been drizzling outside, but the curtain of the willow tree had made an umbrella for him and Luna. Despite the wonderful romance of it, his heart beating fast behind her, Harry had felt guilt, but moreover, he'd felt... Worry.

The Yule Ball is in just a month.

"Certainly," Blaise says smoothly, and he deals himself out of the poker game, standing up from the table and ruffling Daphne's hair as he goes. Daphne slaps his arm, but she laughs as she does it, and Blaise follows Harry into his and Draco's room. Immediately, Blaise has Harry pinned against the wall, and Harry groans into the kiss.

"I actually wanted help," he complains, and Blaise laughs, patting Harry's cheek.

"With Charms?" Blaise arches his eyebrows, obviously surprised, and Harry emphatically shakes his head.

"No," Harry admits. "I don't know how to dance." Blaise stares at him, and then he chuckles.

"You want me to teach you to dance?" Blaise asks, all but crowing the words. He leans forwards, putting one hand on the wall behind Harry, and usually Harry rather enjoys the other boy being a few inches taller than him, but for the time being? It's irritating. "What next, dear Harry? Elocution lessons? Table etiquette?"

"I know table etiquette." Blaise sniggers.

"You do not." Blaise leans in, cupping the side of his face, and Harry pretends to be about to kiss him before he draws back. "Oh, is that it? Without teaching you, I aspire to no reward?"

"Exactly," Harry says. Blaise smirks, and blows air over the tip of Harry's nose, making him groan and knee the other boy in the thigh.

"Is there something on your mouth?" Blaise asks, touching his own lips.

"It's nice, isn't it?" Harry asks, and Blaise gives a little nod of his head, expression pensive, and Harry smiles. Guilt twists in his stomach as he wonders what Luna would say, but he pushes it away and grabs one of his Celestina Warbeck records and putting it on the turntable.

"Put on Pixies At Midnight," Blaise says. "It's a Waltz." He stands in the middle of the room, his chin high, and Harry moves the needle.

"Thanks," he says. "For this." Blaise smirks.

"I'm only doing this for my reward, you know. Come here, and straighten your back."


	76. Year Four: The Crying Astronomer

It is the twelfth of December, and Harry is waltzing. The turntable sits on the edge of a desk, and he holds George close to him as they go through each of the steps. George lets him lead, and although he keeps waggling his eyebrows and making kissy faces at Fred over Harry's shoulder, Harry does his best to focus on the one two three four, one two three four...

"There," George says with a flourish, clapping Harry's shoulders, and Harry grins as they draw apart. Fred is copying Hermione as she moves, and Harry can't help but laugh at the exaggerated movements of his hips and his arms. "What dance is that?"

"It's the cha cha," Hermione says, shifting on her feet and turning in a smooth movement as her and Fred come together again, feet moving to mirror each other on the floor. "Dad wanted me to do ballet when I was younger, but I hated it, so we went to a local dance class instead." Harry tries to imagine Hermione in a tutu and a set of ballet shoes, up on her toes with her arms held above her, three books balanced on her head. He grins.

"I like it," Fred says, but he's cut off before he can say more. There's a loud bang in the corridor, and Harry pulls the needle off the record, setting it on its holder as he opens the door and peers out into the corridor. Covered in green dust and cackling at the top of his lungs, Peeves flies past at speed, leaving three Hufflepuff first years dazed and dusty in the corridor. "We'd best scarper, Fred. They'll blame us for that." Fred and George run down the corridor, and as Hermione puts the record in its case and closes up the turntable, Harry walks down the corridor to the Hufflepuffs.

It doesn't take much - cleaning charms are easy, and removing the mint-scented, green icing sugar isn't different to getting rid of regular dust. He doesn't even think of why he does it - the three of them just look a little shocked and surprised, and it's his instinct to go and clean the little idiots up. They're only first years, after all, and he knows if Snape sees them he'll take points off them for the state of their robes.

"Are you a prefect?" asks one of them, a fat little girl with round glasses like his. The dust clings to her hair, and Harry can't quite get every speck of it off, but he tries his best.

"Nope," Harry says, tapping her on the bridge of her glasses and ridding the dust from the glass. "No badge, see?"

"You're Harry Potter," says another one in an authoritative tone. He has four Weird Sisters badges pinned to the front of his robes, just under his Hufflepuff crest. They come to Hogwarts with plain black robes, but adding crests and coloured bands is the norm - it's very rare that Harry sees children with no indication of their house other than the colour of their under robe. His Slytherin crest sits proudly over his heart, and Hermione's crest does the same. "You took the spotlight off Cedric."

"I took the spotlight off Voldemort, too, if you remember," Harry points out in a dry tone, and he gasps, astonished at Harry's saying the name. Harry gives the Hufflepuffs a once-over, making sure he has the last of the dust off them. "There you go."

"Thank you," says the last of them. She's taller than her friends by a few inches, and wears a golden badger pendant around her neck. "Are those spells hard?"

"Nah," Harry says. "Sprout'll teach you this one for cleaning up soil, if you ask her." He turns away, heading back to Hermione, who's holding the turntable's case in her left hand and smiling at him in an extremely irritating way. He sticks his tongue out at her, and is about to say something, but then he feels a tug at the back of his robes, and he turns. The fat one with the glasses is holding out her hand, and he stares at it. He takes the Chocolate Frog card, and he looks down at its animated image: the man is pale, with a neatly trimmed black beard, and he's inspecting his fingernails. "Salazar Slytherin," he murmurs quietly, and his lips twitch in slight fondness - Slytherins know the history of their Founder better than any of the other houses know their own, and while he knows he was a terrible man, elitist and and too focused on the nonsense of blood purity, Harry can't help but find an affection in himself for the history of the man.

"I've got two, so you can have this one," she says. He smiles at her, mildly surprised: first years in Slytherin house will often ask upperclassmen for help, but said upperclassmen are rarely Harry, and it's never the case that first years of the other houses will come and talk to him. The little Hufflepuff displays her confidence plainly, but the gift surprises him, and his smile is honest.

"Thanks," Harry says. "What's your name?"

"Beth, Beth Wei," she says, "and that's Ned Buttress and Artemis Henderson." When she smiles, her slightly uneven teeth are all on show, and Harry arches his eyebrows at Hermione as the girl runs back to her friends. He slips the card into his pocket, and he walks in line with Hermione down the corridor. With just two weeks left until the Yule Ball, they've been practising dancing with the twins regularly, and Harry's actually getting a little bit excited. At the Malfoys' Christmas Gala a few years ago there'd been no dancing, but it's not actually that hard.

The waltz isn't, at least - he's not planning on having a go at the cha cha or the Hippogriff.

Harry takes the record player back from Hermione as they make their way to the Hall of Staircases, and despite keeping his gaze forwards he can feel her glances at him, becoming more and more disapproving as the moments tick by. She hadn't brought it up in front of the twins, who Harry hasn't yet explained his arrangement with Blaise to, but he knows she wants him to do something.

"Well?" she demands, and Harry sighs as they wait for one of the staircases to slowly come and meet the landing they're standing on.

"Blaise is fine with it," he says evasively.

"Of course he's fine with it," Hermione says sharply, but not in too loud of a voice. "He thinks gay people belong behind curtains. What did Luna say?"

"Nothing."

"Because you haven't told her."

"I don't want to tell everyone that I-"

"So just tell her it's a girl, and-"

"Hermione, I don't see a reason to-"

"Well, Neville's going to do something, I hope you realize."

Harry sighs, rubbing at his eyes. Hermione's doesn't actually like Luna all that much, from what Harry can usually see, but she's also sort of protective over her. Apparently, she often overhears the other Ravenclaws speaking nastily about her in the library. "I'll explain when I ask her to Yule Ball."

"It's dishonest, Harry," Hermione says. "How would you feel?" Harry doesn't know how he'd feel. Luna's feelings on most subjects are very different to Harry's own, but even with that disparity laid aside, he has no idea how he'd feel. He doesn't even know he feels from his own end, let alone from Luna's.

"Did you say yes to Krum?" Harry asks before Hermione can ask him anything else, and Hermione coughs. She looks away, her gaze innocently scanning the portraits hung around the hall of staircases.

"Er, yes. Yes, I did." She doesn't say anything more for a long few moments as they make their way down the stairs, but by the time they reach the entrance hall, she breaks. "Do you think my dress will be okay? And my hair? I mean, I know I normally don't care about that sort of thing, but I'll be opening up the ball with you and the others, and everyone will be looking at me, and I don't-"

"Stop worrying," Harry says quietly. He nudges her gently in the shoulder, and she gives him a worried look, biting on her lip, and he says, "You've got that hair stuff, and those dress robes. You should focus on how Viktor feels about you, and he wouldn't mind if you showed up in nothing but bodypaint." Hermione laughs. "I'll help you with that, if you want to go for it. I think we could put some puffskeins over your boobs, maybe a dragon on your back-" She thumps him on the shoulder, and he grins.

"I think I'll just go with my dress, thanks," Hermione says, shaking her head, and she nods her head. In the doorway to the great hall, Luna is talking with Ginny, a smile on her face and a look of polite confusion on Ginny's. Ginny looks grateful when Harry and Hermione approach: Hermione and Ginny walk into the great hall together, settling at the Gryffindor table, and Harry stands alone with Luna.

"I like the hair," Harry says: Luna's hair is loose around her shoulders, but a hairpin with a blue dragonfly draws her fringe back from her eyes, and she offers him a smile.

"Thank you." Luna reaches out, adjusting the collar of Harry's robes, and says, "I fear you've come to invite me to the Yule Ball, Harry." Luna's gaze is focused on Harry's neck as she speaks, and Harry elects to wait rather than asking questions. "But I must decline. Neville's already asked me, you see, as friends." Harry blinks, staring at Luna's porcelain-pale features with his lips parted.

"Did he?" Harry says, tone mildly stiff. "Right. Well, don't worry about it, Luna. So long as you get to go, right?"

"Right," Luna says sweetly, and she reaches up to pat the side of Harry's face, walking off to the Ravenclaw table. Harry walks to sit with the Gryffindors, sitting with Hermione, and he tries to force his expression into something more neutral, but Hermione and Ginny both know him too well to let him hide his irritation entirely. Of course Neville would do this - the other boy's downright terrified of confrontation at times, but wouldn't want to tell Harry's secrets to Luna either, and this was obviously his solution. The Gryffindor is nowhere in sight, and Harry sets his turntable down at Hermione's feet, wondering which greenhouse Neville will be in at the moment. It's early in the lunch hour, and when Neville works in the greenhouses on a Saturday Harry knows he often eats food with Sprout or gets something from the Kitchens, so he'll probably be out there right now.

He's about to stand to go and find out when there's a harsh cry of sound from the staff table, and they all whip their heads around. Aurora Sinistra has her hand clapped over her mouth, and is staring with obvious horror down at a piece of parchment in her hands. Tears are rolling down her cheeks, the wetness shining in the candlelight, and Harry stares in shock and confusion as she tries to stand and crumples slightly on shaky knees, leaving Snape to hold her up. He puts one of his arms around her, supporting her, and at a nod from him Flitwick snatches the parchment out of Sinistra's hands, folding it up and placing it out of sight.

Snape moves quickly to support Sinistra out of the room, but she's sobbing - normally, Sinistra is as upright witch, and although she'll occasionally offer a tight smile to a student who knows their astronomy, she's normally as emotionless as Snape is. She shakes violently, clinging to Snape's robes and leaning heavily on him, despite his being a good four or five inches shorter than her, and even as Dumbledore tries to call attention to the staff table, every student watches her get all but carried out of the room.

Harry looks to Flitwick, who is seriously looking at the parchment with McGonagall: the both of them are pale, and Harry frowns as Dumbledore stands.

"Professor Sinistra has been taken ill," he says, and the parchment in McGonagall's hand abruptly Vanishes when Harry next looks to her. "Please, children, return to your lunch." Harry frowns, standing up from the table, and he slips out of the great hall, heading out and down onto the grounds. He heads down to the greenhouses, and he hovers in the doorway of Greenhouse Two: on one of the platforms suspended about twenty feet above the rest of the building, Neville, Sprout and a Hufflepuff girl called Hannah are trying to coax a thickly flowered plant to drink something.

All three of them are talking quietly to it as it shivers and lets out strange, whining sounds, but it finally relents, letting the petals of its huge flowers part so that the three of them can pour the liquid into its... Throat?

"Professor Sprout," Harry calls, and she leans over the edge of the platform.

"Potter?"

"I think Dumbledore's going to want you, Ma'am. Professor Sinistra just got something nasty in the post at lunch - she was sobbing in front of everyone, and Snape's taken her out." Sprout's face, round and rosy and spattered with dirt, becomes serious, She carefully makes her way past Neville and Hannah, rushing down the stairs and clapping Harry on the back as she makes her way up to the castle. Neville has the keys to the greenhouse in his hands as he and the Hufflepuff make their way down the stairs, and his expression is quietly serious as he looks at Harry.

Harry wants to yell at him, but he can't in front of Hannah, and yelling at Neville always feels like yelling at a sad puppy anyway.

"What did she get?" Hannah asks. There are pieces of petal and soil in her hair, her robes dirty, but she doesn't care - Neville's in the same state of dishevelment as he pulls off his dragonhide gloves.

"I don't know," Harry says. "I doubt it was good. Could I, uh, have a second with Neville please, Hannah?" She stares at him, narrowing her eyes just slightly, but when she glances at Neville he nods her head, and Hannah walks quickly out of the greenhouse to make her way up the hill.

"I need to put some stuff away," Neville says quietly, looking resigned to his fate, and Harry nods, taking up a watering can at the bottom of the metal stairs and following Neville into the next room. The greenhouses are all huge, with high ceilings and ridiculously wide floorplans, but Greenhouse Three has the most dangerous plants, and Harry is careful not to get too close to any of the pots as they approach the storecupboard.

He sets the watering can on a shelf as Neville hangs up trowels and tools and potions bottles, crossing his arms over his chest and leaning back against the archway.

"You're angry at me," Neville says. "But I don't care." He speaks firmly, his voice quavering slightly. "It's not fair to her, Harry - she's such a nice girl, Luna is, and people are already horrible to her, and carrying on with both her and- and Blaise... It's wrong." Neville isn't looking at him: instead, he's turning bottles around on the shelves so that all of their labels face outward, his head down and his shoulders raised slightly, like he's waiting for Harry to try and hit him.

"I know," Harry says simply. He doesn't say anything else: he doesn't need to. "I know, Neville." Neville looks like making different conversation is momentarily beyond him, so Harry asks, "You think Sinistra's going to be alright? I've never seen her upset before." The relief on the other boy's face is positively palpable, and he sighs as he sets his gloves on a work surface, grabbing for the keys and leading Harry out towards the exit.

"I dunno," he says. "I hope it's nothing too bad, though. With Lockhart, and with the Death Eaters around-" he shakes his head, seeming almost tortured for a second, and he goes quiet before he says, "I'm sure she'll be okay." Harry nods his head, pulling the doors to the greenhouse closed so that Neville can lock up, and the two of them walk up to the castle in silence, saying not another word between them.


	77. Year Four: Snape's Friends

Astronomy lessons that week are cancelled. Sinistra's quarters are on the fifth floor, adjoining the Astronomy Tower, and she seems to mimic Professor Trelawney: she's not to be seen in the rest of the castle at any time at all, and apparently takes her meals in her quarters. It's unnerving for Harry - despite the fact that Sinistra has never been a favourite or least favourite teacher of his, night-time Astronomy lessons with the Ravenclaws have been a simple truth of his school weeks since he was eleven, and seeing Sinistra silently making her way down one corridor or another, or chatting with Pince in the library, is normal.

Her absence is strangely palpable.

The day after Sinistra's breakdown, it's reported in the paper, and when Theodore pushes the paper in front of Harry, Harry doesn't initially understand why. "Belle Rosier Killed In Brutal Attack," he reads, and he glance at Theo perplexedly. He sees Chad Arnett's name in the paper, and a quick scan of the page tells him that Belle Rosier had been a shop assistant in the American's haberdasher's, but had publicly spoken about his obsessive adoration of Gilderoy Lockhart and his snap after Lockhart's imprisonment in Azkaban. It's horrible, and it's tragic, but it doesn't really surprise him - Belle Rosier is the third person he's heard of Lockhart's lot murdering. "So?" Theo, Blaise and Draco are all looking at him seriously; Draco and Blaise are sat together on the floor beside Draco's bed, and they seem to understand immediately.

"Belle Rosier was Sinistra's sister," Blaise says emphatically. "Sinistra is her married name."

"Oh, God," Harry says, staring at the page. The photograph of Belle Sinistra is printed in black and white, a smile on her face as she poses in a set of well-accessorized dress robes, and now he looks at it he sees the similarities in the shade of their skin, the shapes of their noses and their lips. "What did they send her, then? Why did she break down like that?"

"They haven't printed them," Theodore says, "but my cousin Nyx works at Witch Weekly, and they sent them photos."

"Photos?" Harry repeats, and he leans forwards in the same way Draco and Blaise do when Theodore pulls a set of glossy, full-colour photographs. Draco snatches them to look at them first, but immediately he pales a little, and he drops them into Blaise's lap before running out of the room. Blaise frowns after him, but Harry says, a quiet dread settling in his belly, "He's squeamish sometimes. Can't stand the sight of gore." Blaise's expression is completely neutral as he looks at each of the pictures: they're about the size of a postcard, and there are six.

"Merlin's beard," Blaise says quietly, and he turns his dark eyes to Theo. Theo looks slightly overwrought, and Harry reaches slowly for the photographs.

He wishes they were in black or white. In full colour, the thick, bright shininess of the blood on the floor and the walls is sickening: Belle Rosier's eyes are unseeing as she lies suspended in the air on her back in just a silken black nightdress: holding her between the posts of her bed and the top of a dresser are dozens of intricately braided, colourful ribbons, and on her skin in little blossoms of blood are pinned badges and buttons. Needles stick out from her cheeks, and Harry sees the thin, ragged slit in her neck. The animation of the photo shows blood that drips to the puddle beneath her like a dribble of water from a faulty tap.

The other photographs are worse. In the other photographs, Belle Rosier is still alive.

He passes the pictures back, turning is head away and reaching for the glass of pumpkin juice on his desk. He feels sick. Not like he'll vomit - Harry's had his share of grisly injuries, and he's seen similar pictures to this one in some of the Dark Arts books in Grimmauld Place - but in a horrible, cold way. He feels sick of the world, of people like Chad Arnett.

"You think she got sent one of these?"

"Yeah," Theo says, and Harry shakes his head. "Nyx said they're not publishing the pictures, but they're publishing the letter that came with them - it's all Lockhart talking about facing up to criticism, and how they're going to show the wizarding world how impressive Gilderoy Lockhart can be."

"Is his new ambition to be the next Dark Lord?" Blaise asks dryly, arching an eyebrow. When Draco comes into the room, he sits on the edge of Harry's bed, looking green, and Harry pats him on the shoulder.

"If we're lucky," Harry murmurs, "He and Voldemort will just fight each other. At least that'll take Lockhart out of the equation."

"You never know," Blaise says lightly. "Lockhart could win." Harry laughs, and he ignores the way Draco and Theo look between him and Blaise, scandalized, and he lies back on the bed, putting his foot against Draco's knee. Draco looks a little ill, still, and Harry watches him for a moment as Blaise and Theodore start to talk about Lockhart's plans. They're not best friends, he and Draco - for the most part, Draco spends his time with Crabbe and Goyle, who Harry's never managed to hold much of a conversation with, and no one could match Hermione in his life at this point, but still... Harry feels upset to see him like this.

Especially when a quiet, niggling thought reminds him that if photographs of a woman Draco didn't even know have affected him like this, what must Sinistra be feeling?

"You sketch, right, Draco?" Harry asks. Draco's head turns suddenly to look at him, and his silver brow furrows slightly as he meets Harry's gaze. Notebooks are stacked in Draco's bedside cabinet, due to the way he documents his life in diaries and writes down everything he's ever told, but Harry knows the journals will occasionally have an illustration or two.

"Yes," Draco answers. "Why?"

"Do we have sympathy cards in the wizarding world?" Harry asks, directing the question more to Blaise and Theo. The two of them exchange a glance, and then shake their heads. "Right. Well, Draco, grab some parchment..."

* * *

It ends with Harry climbing the stairs to the fifth floor with a wicker basket in his hands. Blaise had dryly pointed out it might be best to remove the ribbons braided around its handle, and Theodore had winced as he'd hurriedly moved to cut them away. Blaise had picked some lilies from down by the lake and wrapped them in paper, laying them down to accompany the card, but at that point, Daphne Greengrass had asked what they were doing, and wanted to somehow assist, and then Francis Drummond had offered a small box of Honeydukes chocolates, and then Terrence Higgs had put in some chamomile tea bags, and...

Well. The basket is full, and Harry has discovered that while Professor Sinistra is not one of his favourite teachers, she is the favourite teacher of several students in the years above.

Sinistra has no door on her office, but merely an archway, and so Harry walks neatly into her office before approaching the door to her quarters behind her desk. Sinistra's office is bright and airy, like her classroom, with windows all along one wall, with celestial diagrams embroidered in the wide rug covering the floor. He knocks gently on the door, only loud enough to be heard, and waits with his feet on Cassiopeia.

He is surprised when the door is opened not by Aurora Sinistra, but by Professor Snape.

"Sir?" Harry says.

"Potter?" Snape says, with similar bewilderment, and Harry looks past him. At a chess table in a muted set of blue robes, Sinistra is rubbing at her eyes, wiping her face with a handkerchief. A pang of further sympathy makes itself known in his chest. "What are you doing here?"

"I brought some things for Professor Sinistra, sir. From Slytherin." Harry has never seen Snape's expression soften. He usually focuses on keeping his expression utterly neutral, but now Snape's black eyes do soften the slightest bit, a downturn to his mouth appearing that's utterly unexpected.

"Let him in, Severus," Sinistra says. Her usually ringing voice is hoarse and thick from crying, and Snape steps back as Harry comes into the room. Sinistra's quarters are decorated in deep blues and creamy whites, with more wide windows and an abundance of hard furniture, and he approaches her at the little round table. The chess game is halfway complete, and white - Snape's side - is winning by a mile. "What is this, Potter?"

"We're sorry about your sister, Ma'am," Harry says, and he holds out the basket. Arlene Snodgreen in the sixth year had got a hamper from Flockhart's Locks for her birthday, and had had it spare: it's wide and deep, and after a Saturday full of snakes running back and forth, it's nearly full, with Draco's card on the top. He'd done a careful diagram of a constellation on the parchment, using a lot of blue ink, and Sinistra stares at it for a long time before she reads the inscription on the inside: With deepest condolences for your loss, Slytherin house is thinking of you, Professor, and wishing you peace and comfort in this difficult time.

"Eridanus," Sinistra says quietly. "A fitting choice." She looks at the basket, then, letting Harry set it on the edge of the table, and she scans its motley contents: chocolates, tea, sugar quills, coffee, and overtop of it all, Blaise's delicately arranged bouquet. Sinistra puts her handkerchief over her mouth and lets out a sob, and for a second Harry is terrified she's going to yell at him to get out, and tell him that they should never have tried to comfort her with sweets and hot drinks, but she stands and pulls Harry into a hug.

Pressed against Sinistra's chest, her chin on his head (she has to lean down, because she must be six feet tall at the very least), Sinistra hugs him so tightly that Harry feels like he might start crying. "Thank you, Potter," Sinistra whispers. It's strange: Sinistra's dark cheeks are tear-streaked and shiny, and her usually calm expression is utterly gone. Harry offers her a small smile, and, still teary-eyed, Sinistra smiles back.

"I hope you feel better soon, Professor," Harry says, and he steps back towards office. On one of the walls, beside a full colour photograph of Belle Rosier and Professor Sinistra laughing around a fishbowl cocktail, there's a picture of Snape and Sinistra playing chess at a Christmas dinner. Sinistra is wearing a Santa hat, and Snape is almost smiling as he takes her queenside rook. The picture must be ten or fifteen years old, and Harry thinks about it as he steps back into Sinistra's office. Snape, who he'd almost forgotten about, is behind him, and he closes the door in a neat motion.

"Potter," Snape says, and Harry glances at him. Snape's expression is indecipherable as he looks at Harry, and then he says in a crisp, business-like tone, "Fifty points to Slytherin." Harry stares at him. "Tell the others."

"Yes, sir," Harry agrees, trying not to show his shock, and Snape returns to Sinistra's quarters with the quiet click of the door latch.

* * *

Professor Snape goes to the funeral with Sinistra, as well as Professor Burbage and Professor Flitwick. Harry sees a photograph of those in attendance at Rosier's burial in the paper, and Snape is in the photograph beside Sinistra. He also recognizes Joaquin Flockhart, Florean Fortescue and Dawn Finchley from Diagon Alley, as well as Dromeda, Nymphadora and Ted Tonks. The photograph obviously hadn't been taken with permission, because Dromeda looks ready to pour bleach down the throat of the photographer as she notices the flash, and Snape's hand is on his wand.

Dromeda writes him about the funeral, and how Sinistra had mentioned the sympathy basket - all of the staff this week have been unusually tended to reward where the Slytherins are concerned; Flitwick had awarded Blaise twenty points to Slytherin for handing a book to him, and Sprout had dropped a (sealed) bag of sugar mice in Draco's Mandrake pot. It's strange, being rewarded - it had never crossed Harry's mind that they'd get points or the like for this, and it gives him a lot to think about.

Mostly, he thinks about Snape, and the strange realization that he actually has friends other than Lucius Malfoy, who treats Snape as something between an adopted son, a rescued bat, and a drinking buddy.

Snape is sat at the lunch table that day, and he is in deep conversation with Filch. Usually, Snape doesn't seem to speak much in the conversations he has with other people - he usually listens to them talk, dryly commenting at one point or another, but with Filch the roles seem somewhat reversed. Barely anyone seems to actually talk to Filch, from what Harry has seen, and nobody likes him, but he and Snape are almost friendly, in the strange, emaciated way "friendly" can be applied to either of them.

"Harry?" Hermione says, and Harry glances at her.

"Yeah?"

"It's five days to the Yule Ball. Have you got a date?" Harry stops thinking about Snape abruptly.

"No," he admits. "I asked Fleur. She said no." Hermione laughs, and Harry frowns.

"Oh, that's alright," George says as he slides to sit beside Harry. "She's going with me." Hermione and Harry both stare at him, and Fred gives a gleeful little laugh as he settles beside Hermione. "What?"

"You're going to the Yule Ball with Fleur Delacour?" Hermione demands, slightly shrilly.

"Well, yeah," George says. "I was gonna ask you, Hermione, but I thought a threesome with me and Krum would be a bit embarrassing, you know. A seeker's just not got the same measurements as a beater, and I wouldn't want to upset him when he couldn't match me." Harry chokes on his pumpkin juice, and George cheerfully pats him on the back as Hermione's cheeks darken.

"Oh," Hermione says, trying not to look embarrassed. "Right."

"If anyone cares," Fred says, "I'm going with Angelina. Who're you going with, Harry?"

"No one, so far," he says grimly. George pats his hand sympathetically.

"There's always faith."

"Faith?" Harry repeats.

"That's the name of the anatomy skeleton in the Transfiguration cupboard," Fred supplies, and he and George laugh. Sighing, Harry shakes his head, and he glances back as Draco approaches the Gryffindor table. He puts his hand on Harry's shoulder, doing his best to disguise the movement as friendly, but Harry can feel the other boy leaning on him.

"So, Granger," Draco says, "Do you want to go the Yule Ball with me?" Harry's eyes go wide as he stares at Hermione, who seems shocked speechless. Fred and George, to their mutual credit, don't say anything either: they just stare at Draco with similar expressions of shock.

"Uh, no," Hermione says. Fred snorts. "I mean- Sorry, I didn't mean to say it like that, I just meant- no, sorry, Draco, I'm, um, I'm not interested in you. That way." Hermione speaks awkwardly and hurriedly, words tumbling over each other, and Harry mouths an apology at her - had he known, he'd have warned her, but Draco had given no clue that he was going to do this.

"Well," Draco says, sticking his nose in the air. His cheeks are a dusky pink. "It's hardly my trouble if you go alone. I was merely trying to be charitable." Harry winces.

"She's going with Viktor Krum, mate," Fred says lightly. "And if she decided to go with you, you definitely wouldn't be the one showing charity." Draco's pink cheeks darken to a plum red, and he looks between the twins and Hermione. It's one thing for Draco to occasionally look at Hermione too long or talk to her in the library, but asking her to the Yule Ball? Given Hermione's complete disinterest, he's not surprised by her reaction.

"Would have been embarrassing to attend with a Mudblood anyway." Fred, George and Harry stand at the same time, but Draco is already leaving the great hall at speed, the back of his neck as red as the Gryffindor banners on the wall, and they watch after him, scowling.

"He's disgusting," Hermione says quietly, revulsion twisting her features. Harry doesn't say anything as they sit down again, and he tries to think not about Draco Malfoy, but about who he's going to take to the Yule Ball. It's when Hedwig brings him a letter from Leicester that he thinks about it, and he smiles at the page as he pets her head.

He's going to have to make some kind of entrance, and he knows one way to do so.

* * *

Draco is in their bedroom, and subsequently, Harry is sat in the common room where it's safe. They're talking about Snape, and Theodore is openly wondering if Sinistra is going to let him take her to the Yule Ball. Blaise, leaning against the wall, is openly shaking his head as he stands with his hands in his pockets.

"I don't think they're interested in each other like that," Harry says, thinking about what he'd overheard between him and Lucius back during the summer. The chess table had been set up between them, their chairs back from the tables, and the distance between them had looked like it would be almost professional, and certainly not romantic. "I heard Lucius nagging him about it in the summer."

"Is Lucius still trying that?" comes a voice from behind him, and Harry whips his head around to stare at Professor Sinistra. She's in a set of her usual brown robes, wearing her hat, and she looks amused. Everyone in the common room is staring at her, and she says archly, "He started it when Severus and I joined the Hogwarts staff, so it's gratifying to know he retains hope for his and I bearing him a few dozen godchildren, unlikely though the fantasy is." Harry laughs. He's one of the only people in the room that does.

"Do you need anything, Professor?" Theo asks, and Sinistra looks around the room. Her expression has returned to its usual quiet neutrality, but then she smiles, her dark lips quirking into the expression.

"I wanted to thank you, all of you," she says, and despite the quietness of the words, they ring through the room. "Slytherin is a house that looks after its own, but I thought that familial spirit had ended upon my completing my education. It is heart-warming to know that the code of honour still applies. Thank you, children." There's a long, silent pause.

And then Blaise says, "If he's not taking you, I don't suppose you're free?" Sinistra laughs. The sound is rich.

"I will offer you a single dance, Mr Zabini," Sinistra says charitably, but then she leans forwards, patting the top of his head, and says, "Though as a partner, I would routinely recommend choosing someone more appropriate to your age and, indeed, your diminutive height." Theo and Harry laugh at Zabini's affronted expression, and laughter rings around the room. Blaise is the tallest of the Slytherin fourth years, but they're all still a little shorter than Snape, let alone Sinistra.

"You are going, though?" Harry asks. He still feels sympathy for her, of course, but as Sinistra is probably the only attractive member of staff at Hogwarts, he also feels that he wants to see her in a set of tight-fitting dress robes.

"Yes," Sinistra says quietly. "She'd have wanted me to. Good night, children." She bows her head before exiting the common room, and Harry watches after her, frowning.

"Can't believe she never remarried," Blaise says, "Though I suppose that means there'll always be room for me once I'm of age."

"Dream on, Zabini," Theo says, shaking his head, and Harry grins a private smile at Blaise, who winks at him. "Bloody sad, though, isn't it? Apparently she and her husband were only married for two years or so before he got killed - he was a Mediwizard, died right on a battle field. My father said Flitwick killed the woman who did it, caught her with an Oppugno and she fell into a ditch and broke her neck."

"Ironically," Blaise murmurs, "Had Maxwell Sinistra been alive, he likely could have saved her. But to lose her husband in the war, and to lose her only sister to a madman like Chad Arnett? That's tragedy."

"Especially given that her best friend seems to be Snape," Theo says, and despite himself, Harry laughs. He shakes his head, leaning back on the sofa, and he thinks of the upcoming Yule Ball.

Now that he has a partner sorted, he actually feels sort of excited. It's going to be great, he's decided: the Yule Ball is going to be the best party of his life so far.


	78. Year Four: The Yule Ball

"Those are just the same robes he wears every day," Hermione says, staring at Snape. Harry stands with her in entrance hall, leaning against the wall, and tries not to laugh. Snape talks quietly and in a serious tone to Igor Karkaroff, who still looks like he's recovering from his illness weeks ago - he looks pale and drawn, his skin tinged green despite the warm firelight. "It's just a shinier fabric. It's the exact same design."

"I know," Harry says. "Funny, isn't it? He wore the same ones to the Malfoys' Christmas Gala least year." Hermione chuckles, smiling, and when Snape looks over to them, Harry gives him a cheerful wave. He rolls his eyes and stalks into the great hall, leaving the two of them laughing together and waiting for their respective dates. Hermione looks beautiful in a set of periwinkle dress robes with ruching at the skirt and a carefully cut neckline, and her hair is drawn up over her head, thick but only slightly wavy. All of its usual tight curl is eliminated for the evening, and there are flowers woven into the hairdo.

"Are those the robes they bought you last year?" Harry nods his head. They're a sweet, plum red, and the birds embroidered on the sides of the robes and on the long sleeves are in golden thread that moves animatedly across the fabric: the birds dance one way and then the next, as excited about the Yule Ball as he is. "They're nice. Oh, there he is." Hermione smooths down the imaginary creases in the front of her skirt, and she moves forwards gracefully, offering Krum her arm.

Harry knows she's spent weeks walking up and down the Gryffindor dorm steps in those steps, making sure she won't fall over in them.

"Ah, Her-my-own, you look- you look very nice," Krum says, softly, and he bows to kiss the top of her hand. His robes are silver, thick with accents of black fur, and Harry envies them as a nice coat for the winter. "And you, Harry."

"What, I don't get a kiss as well?" Krum laughs, his head tipping back.

"Perhaps ven you have a shorter skirt." Harry grins, leaning and kissing Hermione on the cheek.

"You guys go in - I'm just going to go into the courtyard to wait for her." Krum frowns, furrowing his thick eyebrows in confusion, and Harry hears Hermione begin to explain to him as they go into the great hall together. The courtyard is decorated with roses and icy silver ribbons and the like: despite the night chill, it's actually pleasantly warm outside, and he has no doubt if he looked under the rose pots he'd find enchanted heaters and the like. He sees Draco speaking irritably with Pansy Parkinson, who seems uncharacteristically bored with him, and he elects to step towards the path and avoid being drawn in.

Hermione is completely uninterested in Draco, and Harry has no idea how many more times she'll have to turn him down for it to sink in, but for the meantime it's awkward and Draco is positively hateful. Across the grounds, fairy lights linger in the air, illuminating the grass with subtle golden light, and he sees the Beauxbatons students and the Durmstrang ones coming up toward s the castle in dribs and drabs.

"'Arry, go inside," says a teasing voice. "It is too cold out 'ere for a little boy!"

"You go inside, Fleur. Go stand with the other ice sculptures." Fleur laughs, patting Harry's cheek as she walks past him, and he grins, shoving her hand away. He puts his hands in his pockets as he sees a coach approaching from down the path, and his grin grows as the nothing-drawn carriage draws to a close, and Afifa Lanjwani steps from inside, her chin held high as she stands straight. The fabric of her dress robes is a deep, shining blue, and embroidered around the neckline and the waist are numerous gem stones and bronze threads; her earrings are a similar colour, and the braids of her hair are shining with bronze thread.

"Ravenclaw colours?" he demands. "You're joking me!"

"You've no leg to stand on, Potter," Afifa says, arching an eyebrow at him. He's found he's kind of missed Afifa Lanjwani's judgemental eyebrows. "You're bedecked like a Gryffindor." He offers her his arm, and she smirks, taking it in hers. Harry finds himself relieved she's wearing flat shoes: he's grown taller, this year, and Afifa is only a little bit taller than him. With heels, he's sure she'd tower over him.

"Thank you," he says quietly as they walk slowly through the courtyard. Her dress jangles quietly as they move through the magic-warmed night air, and Afifa smiles at him. They've kept in contact via Harry's letters, and Harry knows she keeps herself busy at her parents' shop. "For this."

"Harry," Afifa points out in a measured tone, "You've just invited me to the party of the century. To open a ball. Do you really think you need to be thanking me?" Harry considers this.

"No. I guess not." Afifa's hand smacks hard upside his head, and Harry laughs as she ruffles his hair before taking his arm again. "You ready?"

"Completely," Afifa says, and he leads her into the great hall.

* * *

"Well done, Harry," Afifa murmurs as the opening waltz is slowly faded into another song by the orchestra; George is talking quietly to Fleur as he leads her off the dance floor, and although Cedric, Cho, Hermione and Viktor are still dancing, Harry's more than content to step to the side. The great hall is decorated in silvers and golds, a huge Christmas tree dominating one side of the room, and there are thick, golden cloths over the two tables pushed to the edges of the room.

"Ms Lanjwani," comes a voice, and Harry arches an eyebrow at Percy. Percy's dress robes are a burnished gold, the same colour as some of his lighter freckles, and he does his best to look airy and casual; he'd entered with Amelia Bones, and from what Harry can see she's now in conversation with Madame Maxime. Percy looks nervous and out of place, holding himself even more stiffly than usual, but Afifa doesn't seem to be put off in the least.

"Percy," Afifa replies dryly. Percy seems slightly surprised by her use of his first name, jolting back slightly. Harry doesn't miss the nervous way the tip of his tongue flits over his lip, and he tries to ignore the twinge the movement sends through him.

"Would you- er, that is to say-"

"Of course I'll dance with you," Afifa says, cutting through Percy's bluster. "How nice of you to ask." She gives Harry a wink as she takes Percy's arm, and Harry grins, putting his hands in his pockets as he makes his way to the side of the room to get something to eat. His mouth goes dry when he sees Luna sipping at ice-coloured punch: her dress robes are white, the skirt in several dozen lacy layers, and she looks beautiful.

"Hello, Harry," Luna says, smiling at him. He smiles back. "Are you enjoying the evening?"

"It's only just started," Harry says, "but yeah, I guess I am. What about you?"

"Oh, yes," Luna decides, giving a nod of her head. "I'm having such a good time. We should dance, later."

"Sure," Harry agrees, and he watches as she walks away. The layers of her skirt sway as she moves, and Harry breathes in before letting out a small sigh. He shakes his head, turning to get himself some food, and he sits with George and Ron at the edge of the room. Ron had come to the ball with Padma Patil, who seems less than pleased at Ron's lack of interest in the dance and at his hideously ugly dress robes. Harry finds he enjoys the actual dancing, though - he dances with Padma and Parvati, with Fleur, with Afifa again and with Hermione throughout the evening, as well as assorted girls in the years above, and from Beauxbatons and Durmstrang. It's not as awkward as he expected - they make small talk and talk about the people dancing around them, about the party, about the upcoming tasks.

And Snape, Harry realizes as he copies the bow a Durmstrang girl had given him, is dancing. Harry isn't the only one staring as he sidles to the edge of the room: Sinistra dances with an impossible grace, seeming to glide over the floor without actually touching it, but Snape... Snape's dancing is technically perfect, and seems to completely fit the rhythm of the waltz, but his body is stiff, and Harry feels like he's watching a clockwork doll dance rather than a man. His steps aren't anything like the smooth steps he takes down any of the corridors, seeming to flow with the shadows of the castle, but they're good.

Sinistra and Snape give each other short, polite bows as they draw apart, but before Snape can finish turning on his heel to move back to the side of the room, where he'd been watching the evening's proceedings, Afifa intercepts him. Snape arches a single, dark eyebrow at her as she offers him her hands, and then he smirks at her. He smiles a little as he sees the two of them begin to dance. The room is warm, though, and he feels a need to be outside, so he slips towards the entrance hall and then out into the courtyard, his hands in his pockets.

He sees Bill Weasley in a set of red dress robes, who'd been invited to the Yule Ball thanks to his volunteering to work on the Second Task, and he opens his mouth to say hello, but then he sees his little grin as he lets a girl take his hand and pull him behind a wall. Harry coughs into his hand as he recognizes Fleur's silver-blue dress shimmering in the torchlight, and he turns his head away. As Harry casually makes his way through the courtyard and out under the fairy-lit grass, which is slick with evening dew, he sees that Fleur and Bill aren't the only people who've paired off and slipped out of the way - he sees a pair of Ravenclaws sprawled on one of the benches, snogging as if they'll drown without having their tongues touching, and a few different pairs here and there.

Absently, he considers looking for Blaise, but he knows the two of them couldn't kiss in public where someone could see. He walks idly, his gait slow as he watches the fairies sprawl on the air around the grounds, and he breathes in the cool night air. As he makes his way down the path in the vague direction of the greenhouses, he stops short, frowning as he leans forwards.

Crouching down, hiding himself behind a thick hydrangea bush, Harry sees Draco. His white-blond hair is illuminated slightly by the torches nearest the greenhouses, and Harry frowns as he watches the other boy. As he gets closer, he realizes what Draco is looking at it: Krum is sat on the stone bench outside of Greenhouse Two, and perched on his lap is Hermione: the two of them are chuckling, noses brushing each other as they talk quietly.

Harry realizes a few seconds too late that Draco has his wand out.

* * *

Draco is crying. His cheeks are blotchy and red, and a black eye is blossoming on the left side of his face. A purpling, hand-shaped bruise is obvious on his throat from where Harry pinned him to the ground, and his cheeks are wet with tears, blood thick on his chin. Harry hasn't cried, but his nose is broken and there's blood all over his mouth and his chin, and he's pretty sure two of his fingers are dislocated.

"Would either of you be so kind as to inform me as to why you were brawling amongst the flowerbeds this evening?" asks Snape in a low voice, fury dripping hotly from every word. Draco sniffles, but before he can reply, Harry does.

"Draco's a snivelling, cowardly little-"

"Potter," Snape says.

"Person." Snape glances between Draco and Harry, and then he leans to fix Harry's nose. Hermione is laid out on one of the beds, and Madam Pomfrey is casting quiet spells over her, and when Harry had got a glimpse of her he'd winced, because there were heavy bruises all over her skin, as if someone had punctured all her blood vessels without puncturing the skin. Draco had meant to curse Krum, but when Harry had tackled him the spell had missed, hitting Hermione in the back instead, and Harry had taken some time to wrestle the wand out of his hand as Krum carried Hermione up to the castle. Both of them have hydrangea petals scattered over their robes and in their mussed hair.

"Ms Lanjwani sends her regards," Snape says dryly, and Harry winces. He's going to have to send her a long letter of apology, Harry knows. "Now, what happened?" Snape demands again.

"The boy vas angry Hermione vent to the Ball with me, and not with him," a sharp, accented voice says, and Krum stares down at Draco, his eyes dark and his arms crossed over his chest. "He meant to hit me. Disgusting." Krum scowls, and Draco stares at his own knees, not wanting to make eye contact. Harry coughs a little as Snape pushes up his chin to examine his face, and then fixes Harry's fingers.

"Thank you, sir," Harry says, suppressing the urge to snarl at Draco. He stands from the bed and makes his way over to Hermione's bed. Hermione is sitting up now, breathing in and out shakily, many of the bloody blotches under her skin have been healed away. She looks humiliated, and Harry feels furious. "I'm gonna just go home tonight. I'm gonna ask McGonagall if I can use her Floo now, unless you want me to stay?"

"It's alright, Harry," Hermione bites out. She tightens her hands into fists as she looks over to Draco, and Harry feels like by the time he comes back from Sirius' in January, Draco may well be dead. Serves him right, Harry thinks. "I'm sorry about this, Viktor. Are you okay?"

"This boy vas very dishonourable. A coward, casting at us when we were unavare."

"I know," Hermione mutters, and Harry gives her a hug before he leaves the hospital wing, not catching Draco's eye as he leaves.

"Hey, Potter!" Draco yells after him, and Harry turns in the doorway. He smirks at Harry, despite the blood staining his teeth. "Lovegood was snogging Eddie Carmichael under the leftside fountain." Before Harry can lunge at the other boy, Snape grabs him by the back of his robes, dragging him out of the infirmary, and reluctantly Harry goes.


	79. Year Four: Black And Blue

Lucius raises his head as Harry steps out of the fireplace, but Harry ignores the man's widened eyes and obvious surprise, stepping past him and into the living room. All he needs to hear is the quiet thunk of his trunk following him through the Floo, and he doesn't want to linger and chat to Lucius. Remus and Sirius are hunched over a game of chess, Sirius winning by a landslide, but as soon as he sees Harry's face he knocks over his king.

"I don't want to stay here," Harry says bluntly. "Can we go to your flat?"

"Sure," Sirius says immediately, standing up. He doesn't ask any questions or fuss over Harry or try and talk to him. He just says, "Give me ten minutes." and rushes to make his way up the stairs.

"What's wrong, Harry?" Remus asks, setting the chess set away with a wave of his wands, and he looks concernedly at Harry, gaze flicking over his dirty, petal-covered dress robes, and Harry twists his lips. He hears the sound of the fire flaring in the next room, and he hears Lucius asking someone a question. It's Snape's voice that responds. Remus moves into the dining room again, and Harry hovers behind him, his arms crossed over his chest.

"- brawling in the flowerbeds," he hears Snape finish. Lucius' nostrils flare, and there's a pink, angry tinge on his face as he stands, buttoning up his outer robe and summoning his shoes. For a second, just a second, Harry is half-terrified that Lucius is going to turn his obvious fury on him, but Lucius doesn't seem to have remembered that Harry exists: he ties back his hair, grasps his cane with a white-knuckled grip, and he sets his jaw.

"Come then, Severus. I'll be speaking with him." Harry watches as Snape inclines his head, and when the two of them step into the flames of the fireplace, Harry feels himself relax.

"Draco cursed Hermione," Harry mutters to Remus, sticking his hands in his pockets. "Come on. I'll explain upstairs."

By the time Harry is sat on the sofa in Sirius' living room, his trunk beside him and a steaming mug of cocoa in his hands, he's explained the whole story, and Sirius has an ugly scowl on his face. Remus is frowning, his arms crossed over his chest: he and Sirius inhabit the loveseat across from the wide, five-seater sofa, and where Remus leans back against the seat with his long legs dangling from the arm, Sirius is hunched forwards, frowning at Harry with his chin on his hands.

"The bastard," Sirius says. He shakes his head, scowling, and then glances at Harry for a few moments. "You thought Lucius was going to yell at you?"

"No," Harry admits. Despite his momentary fear, he doesn't think Lucius will actually snap at him if it was Draco who initiated the trouble - Harry isn't, after all, some Gryffindor Lucius doesn't know, even if Draco is more precious to him than anything else in the world. "But I thought Draco might decide to come home for the holidays, just so Hermione doesn't murder him."

"That's good thinking," Remus says thoughtfully. "He might well do that." Remus is looking at Harry in the concerned, slightly tired way he always seems to, as if he wishes he could put Harry in a box and keep him away from everything in the world that might annoy him; Sirius, by contrast, is drumming his fingers against his thigh and looks like he's plotting revenge. Harry sighs, setting his cocoa on the coffee table and sitting glumly back in his seat, and Remus watches him before asking, "Something else on your mind?"

"Draco said Luna was kissing Eddie Carmichael," Harry says, heaving a sigh.

"Is Luna the girl you, ah-" Sirius whistles, giving Remus a side glance. Remus, who guesses immediately what the noise means, rolls his eyes.

"Stop doing that when you talk about sex," Harry says irritably. "And no. That was someone different. But I, er. I didn't tell her. That I was with someone else, as well - that's why Luna went to the Ball with Neville, as friends, and was kissing Eddie Carmichael instead of me." He feels guilt twist thickly in his stomach, guilt and anger and jealousy and a want to crawl under his covers and sleep for the rest of the Christmas holidays.

"You've been dating two girls at once?" Remus asks, but he doesn't sound judgemental. If anything, he looks amused, and on some level that infuriates Harry. Harry feels guilty for what he's been doing, and the idea that Remus and his godfather might find that funny upsets him.

"Not dating," Harry says. "We've just been- you know. Snogging. Snogging, and, uh-"

"And whistling?" Remus suggests. Harry groans, and Sirius coughs behind his hand, smacking Remus' side. Remus turns very slowly to look at Sirius, narrowing his eyes, and asks, "I suppose you knew this was going on?"

"No," Sirius lies smoothly.

"He taught me some contraceptive charms, Remus," Harry says. "He's been very responsible." Remus considers this for a moment.

"Good," Remus decides, and he ignores the way Sirius' jaw drops as he stares at him. Harry has suspected Remus would be just as casual about this as Sirius, but Sirius looks utterly floored by the fact. "And the other girl - what's her name?" Harry hesitates for a second, thinking about the way Sirius had smacked Lindon Sartorius that summer.

"Uh, Blaise," Harry says awkwardly. "Blaise Zabini." Sirius, who'd just been taking a sip of his Fanta, spits orange all over his face and his chest. Remus pats Sirius hard on the back as he coughs, wiping his face with a handkerchief and putting his can on the table. His eyes are watering, and his expression as he stares at Harry is almost wild. Harry stays frozen in his place, unsure what to say: fear settles thickly in his chest, and his breaths are shaky.

And then Remus says, "Of course, there's no issue with that, so long as you're being safe." Relief floods through him, but somehow it doesn't surprise him that Remus is being so accepting. Sirius' head whips in Remus' direction, staring at him. Remus resolutely stares at Harry's face, and for a long, terrible second, Harry wonders if Sirius is going to just walk out on both of them.

"Yeah, Harry," Sirius says. "That's fine. Hell, I fucked half a dozen boys at school." Harry and Remus both stare at Sirius, whose eyes go slightly wide, and then he shrugs his shoulders.

"It's just sex. It's normal to shag attractive people."

"Why didn't you tell me?" Remus demands harshly, his hands tight in balls as he stares at Sirius, who flinches back slightly. Remus looks suddenly angry as he looks at Sirius, angrier than Harry would have expected. "Did James know? Did Peter?"

"No," Sirius says, tone defensive. "James did, but not Peter." There's an expression of utter betrayal on Remus' face, and Harry feels like he's gotten himself too deeply into this conversation. There's a hidden depth to this conversation that's beyond him: Sirius looks panicked and slightly nervous, and Remus looks all but wild, his lips twitching, his eyes flickering one way and then the other as he thinks.

"So neither of you have an issue with it?" Harry interrupts, slightly hoarsely.

"'Course not," Sirius says, shrugging his shoulders with a forced nonchalance. "It's just sex, isn't it? You know you couldn't marry him or something?" Harry feels tension in his body as he leans slightly forward, pressing his hands against his knees.

"You hit Lindon," Harry says. Sirius glances at him, his lips parting. "Back in the summer. Because he's gay."

"Gay?" Sirius repeats, bewildered. Remus mutters something in his ear, and then he says, "Oh. No. Because I thought he was going to try and shag you, and you're about twelve, and he's about fifty." Remus lets out a rueful half-laugh.

"Why? He's not going to try and shag me, Sirius." Sirius leans back in his seat, crossing his arms over his chest. "We're friends. He's like- he's like Lucius, or Narcissa, or- or Snape. Do you think one of them is going to shag me?" Sirius gags. "Exactly!"

"Men like him, Harry-"

"Men who're attracted to men?" Harry prompts.

"They don't do it like we do, Harry, it's… They want to take advantage. It's just how most of them are-" Harry feels anger flare through him.

"What?"

"I think," Remus breaks in hurriedly, putting his hand on Sirius' chest and stopping him short, "Harry should go to bed. You've had a long night, right? Go have a bath and we'll let you sleep in tomorrow morning." There's a thick, uncomfortable density to the air between Remus and Sirius, and Harry feels like a kid who's caught his parents fighting. Sighing and shaking his head, he leaves the living room, closing the door behind him…

Before he sits down on the floor beside the door, murmuring a spell to let him hear better. He can hear the sound of Sirius' boots on the floor, pacing back and forth, but judging by the sound of his voice, Remus is still sat down.

"Just explain your logic to me, Sirius," Remus says in the dry, mildly sarcastic voice Harry has grown used to hearing. "Why is your attraction to men different to Lindon Sartorius'?"

"Oh, shut up. This is why me and James kept it to ourselves at school!" Sirius says sharply, and Harry's eyes widen.

"You and James…?" Remus repeats in a whisper, sounding ill, and Harry feels the same uncertainty - it's not disgust, exactly, but the idea of Sirius and his father... God. It's weird.

"What? No! Not like that!" Sirius snaps, breathing slightly heavily. "No, James wasn't- James just liked girls, but he understood my interest in men. The reason we didn't share it with you and Peter is because you wouldn't have understood. Bloody- Look, for Purebloods-"

"Oh, this is about blood status," Remus says, voice rising slightly in anger. "I should have realized-" Harry hears one of them let out a loud huff of breath, but he doesn't know if it's Sirius or Remus.

"It's not like I was lording it over you and Peter, but-"

"You constantly lorded it over me and Peter, the both of you!" Remus growls, his deep, hoarse voice even lower than usual. "At every opportunity!"

"It was different for us! Don't you understand that!? It was always different. And you just wouldn't have understood, neither of you. Liaisons with men are perfectly common, but they're to be kept behind closed doors: it's about sex, and nothing more. One couldn't possibly have such a relation and think it a romance. Halfbloods and Muggleborns, they twist matters, they believe-"

"I can't believe I'm listening to this," Remus says exhaustedly. "It's like you're living in 1978, Sirius, that's not how things are."

"Of course it's how things are! Do should be able to just pick a man and marry him!?"

"Why shouldn't I be able to!?" There's an extended pause. Harry can hear Remus and Sirius both breathing heavily: Sirius is no longer pacing back and forth, but is utterly still. Harry can't so much as hear the leather of the sofa crinkling. Harry's stomach twists, and he feels sick. It's one thing to know that Sirius might have shagged a few blokes here and there, a comforting thing at that, but what he doesn't understand is Remus' stance.

What Harry doesn't understand, actually, is Remus.

"I don't..." Harry hears Sirius say. There's another long pause, and Harry wishes he could see Remus' face, see Sirius' face, and understand what's wordlessly passing between them. "I'm going to bed."

"Moony, don't, that's not-"

"I'm going to bed," Harry hears Remus say again, and he rushes down the corridor to slip into his room. He moves quickly, stripping off his outer robe and throwing it onto the bed. He sets a bath running in the next room, and then he opens up his trunk, scattering a few things around to make it look like he's been unpacking.

There's a quiet knock at his door, and he says, "Come in." Remus opens the door, hovering in the doorway, and he watches Harry for a second. "You okay?"

"I'm fine," Remus murmurs. He doesn't look fine. His skin is a little paler than usual, his lips thin. "Harry?"

"Mmm?"

"You left petals and dirt outside the door. I know you were listening." Harry opens his mouth, and then closes it. When Remus smiles at him, the expression is soft and warm, and he says, "Good night, Harry. Go to bed."

"I will," Harry says, and Remus pulls the door closed.


	80. Year Four: Letters From Gringotts

On Boxing Day, Harry doesn't read his post. A few letters are brought in for him, and although he reads that morning's copy of the Owl Gazette, he leaves the five envelopes on his desk to be looked at later. He, Sirius and Remus sit around the living room, and Harry opens the presents he hadn't had time to open the day before before starting on thank you notes.

The most amusing of the gifts is from Ted Tonks - hastily added to Dromeda's parcel of a red dressing gown is a blue fly swat, tied with a ribbon. He laughs when he pulls it out, reading Andromeda's note that Ted had insisted he had wanted to add something to Harry's Christmas present, and had then forgotten to get anything. After Harry has finished with his thank you notes and Sirius has (almost) finished prancing up and down in the leather jacket Remus had bought him, they settle down in the living room again, eating at leftovers and snack foods.

"Do you want to include any of the secret passages on the map?" Remus asks as he sketches out a map of the ground floor of Hogwarts. The Marauder's Map lies open on the end table, but Remus doesn't so much as glance at it, easily drawing the rooms from memory and sketching in bird's eye views of the tables in the great hall.

"No," Harry says, shaking his head. "Otherwise they won't be secret, will they? Could we make it so that the map will take on stuff people write on it, though? Like, say they're using a particular classroom for a club or something..."

"Oh, yeah," Sirius says, scribbling it down on a piece of paper. "That's actually pretty easy - we needed to do that whenever we discovered something new." Working on the Hogwarts Guide takes up the majority of the day, and Harry enjoys it - Sirius and Remus explain the various spells used as they plan out the initial design, and they hide the awkwardness between them. Harry can see they're feeling uncertain in talking to each other, and although Remus feigns an easygoing demeanour, Sirius keeps shooting him uncertain glances, as if he feels Harry might break down in tears at any second.

By the late afternoon, Sirius' concern is really beginning to get on Harry's nerves, especially as he won't actually voice any questions. As Harry gets more and more irritated, Remus begins shooting glances at Sirius, and it's at that point that Harry gives up. "Let's keep working on this tomorrow," he says, standing and setting his quill aside. "I'm gonna go take a nap."

"Alright," Remus murmurs, giving a nod, and Sirius pats Harry on the shoulder as he goes.

Harry doesn't nap. He just kicks his door shut and wishes he'd finished packing - his turntable is on his dresser at Hogwarts, as well as most of the books he'd started reading. The only real entertainment he has is his chess set, Dudley's old radio and his broom, and he's not interested in any of those at the moment. He sighs, shaking his head slightly, and he goes over to the desk, flicking through the letters that had come for him that morning.

Most of them are unimportant - new owl order forms from Flourish and Blotts, a curt thank you note from Augusta Longbottom for the gloves he'd sent her for Christmas, a postcard from Takoda at the snake sanctuary... It's all fairly benign and uninteresting until he gets to the last envelope in the pile.

It's a heavy paper stock, and there's a deep green wax crest keeping it closed. He draws out the parchment inside, scanning the page, and he frowns, reading it again. And then again.

 _Mr H. J. Potter,_

 _An issue has come up with your standing account at Gringotts Bank, and it cannot be resolved by post; please make your way with this letter to the bank as soon as possible. The issue has arisen from an existing subscription made by your mother, Lily Potter, to an outside service._

 _Clawbane_

 _Bank Administrator_

 _Gringotts Bank_

Harry sighs, stepping out into the corridor. Remus and Sirius aren't in the living room, and so Harry steps into the kitchen. He stops short in the kitchen, staring at the two of them: Remus has his forehead pressed against the cabinet, and Sirius looks about ready to throw a plate. He guesses they've been arguing, but he doesn't want to bother with it - he just wants Sirius and Remus to sort this out amongst themselves, and hopefully Sirius will forget about Harry being... Not-gay.

"What time does Gringotts close?"

"It doesn't," Sirius says, carefully putting down the plate he'd been holding above his head. "Why?"

Harry passes the parchment to him, and Sirius reads the curt note before rolling his eyes and passing it to Remus. "Bloody goblins," Sirius mutters, crossing his arms over his chest. "Why've they got to be so vague? Get your cloak, then, let's just go and find out what it is."

"Wasn't the ink on your Goblet of Fire entry goblin-made?" Remus asks, arching an eyebrow.

"Doesn't mean it was a Gringotts goblin," Harry says, but Sirius seems to be reconsidering his position.

"And there could be Death Eaters, or Lockhart and-"

"Except that they can't start a fight in Gringotts or they'll be kicked out," Harry says firmly, looking between the two of them. He shifts his weight from one of his feet to the other, shifting his hands in his sleeves: annoying as it is that Gringotts haven't outlined what exactly the issue is, it's got his mother's name on it, and he wants to know what this subscription is as soon as possible. After all, it's been fifteen years since she died, and there's never been a mention of subscriptions that Harry hadn't taken out himself on his bank statements. "Besides, you two'll come with me, right? So I'll be safe."

Remus and Sirius exchange a long look, and then Remus says, "Fine." With Remus' murmured word, Sirius relents, and he nods his head too.

It only takes Harry a few seconds to grab their cloaks.

* * *

"Excuse me," Harry says quietly, and the goblin behind the front desk peers down at him from his perch, arching one of his thick, grey eyebrows. Its gaze flits from Harry's face to those of Sirius and Remus: they're stood behind each of his shoulders like the three of them are part of a vanguard, and if Gringotts weren't utterly empty of anyone but six goblins, Harry would feel embarrassed. "I was sent a summons. There's an issue with my account?"

"Name?"

"Potter," Harry says. The goblin peers down at his books, and then gives a short nod of his chin, calling behind him for a goblin. They're lead off into an antechamber, down a corridor and into a small, modestly decorated office. Framed on a wall is a diploma written in a language Harry doesn't understand, but is fairly certain is Gobbledegook, and in the corner is a thick, leafy plant with pink flowers. The petals are thick and voluminous, and Harry's nose is filled with a sweet scent. He steps towards it, reaching out - the flowers seem to shift slightly with a draught from the door, and he wants to feel the smooth pinkness of the petals under his fingertips.

"You oughtn't touch that, Mr Potter," says a high, reedy voice. He's tall for a goblin, nearing four foot five, and he's wearing a thick, blond toupée that his ears stick out from under; instead of the armour-style tunics the goblins usually wear, he's wearing a pin-striped suit with silver buttons, and a golden chain betrays the watch in his inside pocket. "Beautiful flowers, but they've sharp teeth." Harry glances back to the petal he'd been close to brushing with his fingers, and the flower shifts again: its stamens shift like a dozen little tongues, and around the edge of the flower Harry sees a set of sharp, angular teeth display themselves.

Hurriedly, Harry withdraws his hand.

"My name is Clawbane, Mr Potter," he says as he comes into the room, giving nods to Sirius and Remus. He barely even looks at Harry. The goblin approaches his desk, plucking a sheaf of paper from its surface, and he scans the page on top. "Let's see... Regent Storage, in Nottingham... Locker 24... I believe the fee is twenty pounds sterling per month, though paid in a lump sum for the year is merely one hundred. Your mother had paid up to this point, but her standing retainer has now been used, and you must renew her subscription-"

"What are you talking about?" Harry interrupts, staring down at the little man in perplexity.

"Hmm?" The goblin asks. "The subscription-"

"Subscription to what?"

"Oh, the Muggle equivalent of a vault. A storage locker."

"And this was my mother's?" Harry asks. Clawbane blinks at him, tilting his head slightly to the side.

"Yes," he says, as if it's obvious. "Now, the fee-"

"Why the Hell didn't you tell me this storage locker existed when I first came to see my vault?" Harry demands.

"It's a subscription to an outside service - a Muggle one, at that. Given that at the time it required no further investment by yourself, it was not included on your statements. Now-"

"But you knew it existed."

"It's a Muggle service. It has no bearing on your Gringotts account." Harry stares at the little goblin, his mouth open, but before he can argue any more, Sirius taps him on the shoulder and just shakes his head. Harry takes his godfather's silent advice, and he crosses his arms over his chest. "Would you like to renew your subscription, Mr Potter, or-"

"We'll look at the locker's contents before making a decision," Remus says, and Clawbane gives a nod of his head, paging through the booklet in his hands. Harry sighs, but he listens as Sirius begins to ask legal questions Harry doesn't understand.

* * *

"You want to work on your Animagus transformation?" Sirius asks, leaning on Harry's doorframe. Remus had gone to Nottingham that morning, assuring that all Harry would need to bring is a copy of his birth certificate to check against Lily's name on their files, but the storage lockers weren't open on the weekends. Harry wishes it was Monday already.

"No," Harry murmurs. "I think I'll leave the Mandrake leaf until the summer. It'll give me more time to meditate and focus anyway, without extra stress. Given the tournament and all, you know."

"Yeah," Sirius murmurs, and he comes into the room, sitting on Harry's trunk. Harry is curled in his armchair, absently playing with the puzzle toy Lindon had sent him for Christmas and not really making any progress. Sirius watches him seriously, leaning forwards with his hands awkwardly folded between his knees, and then he says, "You know what I love you, Harry?"

"Yeah, I know," Harry says, reluctantly tearing his gaze away from the puzzle box and meeting Sirius' eyes. Sirius looks like he hasn't been sleeping for the past few days - his eyes are dry and slightly shadowed, and he's been missing spots when shaving in the morning. Sirius normally cultivates an artful stubble, doing his best to look on the dignified side of rugged, but there are longer whiskers in amongst his beard, on his chin and his cheeks, that look out of place.

"You could shag a goblin, and I'd support you. Hell, you can go for some sort of threesome with a centaur and a vampire, and I'll still-"

"I get the picture," Harry says. "Though I don't think Blaise has anything on a centaur." Sirius sniggers, turning his head away with a grin on his face. "I don't want to lecture you or anything, Sirius. I just think you should maybe look at what the Muggles think about this stuff, you know? Elton John's gay."

"Elton John doesn't like men," Sirius says, scoffing, and Harry has to stop himself from laughing at his godfather's conviction.

"Yeah, Sirius, he really does," Harry says. "He divorced his wife a few years ago - he's with this bloke called David Furnish."

"Publicly?"

"Yeah." Sirius stares at him as if he's grown a secondary head. "Like I said, you should look at what the Muggles think. I mean, they're not like, totally accepting, but there's even talk of gay people being able to get married one day." Sirius puts his chin on his hands, looking deeply thoughtful, his dark brows furrowed, and Harry leans back in his seat. "Not that I'm gonna marry a bloke or anything. I just don't see why it'd be such a big deal if I wanted to." Sirius leans back, pressing his lips together, and he drums his fingers on his knees.

"Do you think Remus is, uh-" Sirius leans from one side to the other. "Gay?" Harry watches Sirius' face for a few moments.

"Uh," Harry says. "Wouldn't you know better than me?" Sirius' head shoots up, and he stares at Harry with a scandalized expression on his face. "I don't mean- because you're friends, you dirty-minded dickhead."

"Oh," Sirius says, giving a slow nod of his head, and he leans back, crossing his arms over his chest as he considers this. He hast the good grace to look mildly embarrassed. "Thought you were saying I'm moony over Moony." Harry groans, shaking his head. "I wouldn't have a problem with it, of course. If he was."

"Okay," Harry says. He feels out of his depth, talking about this - he knows about Muggle stuff, but he doesn't want to talk about Remus' sexuality and what it may or may not involve. In all honesty, Harry doesn't want to think about Remus or Sirius having sex, regardless of who it might be with, and especially not if it's going to be with each other. "We're going to the storage locker on Monday morning?" Sirius shifts, and then he gives a small nod of his head.

"Yeah. Yeah, kid, Monday morning. And then Thursday it's back to school." Harry breathes in, nodding his head.

"What do you think's in it?"

"I dunno," Sirius admits. "Lily never mentioned it, and nor did James. I don't know, Harry. Don't get your hopes up, okay? It might just be paperwork or something. That's probably all it is - Lily would have just paid it in advance so she didn't have to go through the palaver of paying a Muggle subscription from her Gringotts account." Harry can see Sirius isn't convinced. He fidgets slightly in his seat, looking like he's doing his best to hide his excitement. "Then again..."

"Then again?"

"Nothing," Sirius says, shaking his head. His lip twitches. "We'll find out on Monday." Harry frowns at him, furrowing his brow, but then he gives a nod of his head. It's just 'til Monday, after all - he only has to wait 'til Monday.

* * *

 **A/N:**

 **I'm afraid with this instalment, I'm declaring a hiatus from fanfiction. I'm going to university this autumn, and I'm having some unexpected financial issues, so I'm going to be focusing on my original work and doing my best to make some more money than I currently do. This hiatus will be lasting at least a few months, though I'm not sure about the full duration.**

 **If anyone's interested in period & fantasy erotica, PM me for the name I write under. Thanks so much for your support thus far, guys, and I'll try to make my way back as soon as possible!**


	81. Year Four: The Volkswagen Beetle

"Now," Remus says, and Harry walks quicker.

"Shut up," he retorts before the werewolf can say anything more. Sirius is almost running to keep up with Harry's brisk power walk and Remus' long, wolf-like lope: Harry does not care. They're taking ages, and he does not care. The key in his hand is dusty and slightly cold, and he clutches it so tightly between his fingers that the key's teeth leave little imprints in his skin.

"I'm just saying," Remus says, and he's not even out of breath, "you shouldn't get your hopes up too high. It may not-" Harry all but skids to a stop behind the faded blue of the huge, metal door. It's like a little garage, and he drops onto his knees, shoving the key into the padlock. He half expected it to be rusted and difficult to turn, but they must replace the locks whenever they're too old: this one is pretty new, after all, and definitely hasn't been there for twenty years. Closing his eyes and taking in a big lungful of air, Harry throws up the door of the storage locker. He listens to the metallic click, click, click of the door's folding frame as it slides up towards the ceiling, and grins as the locker's contents are bared to the early morning sun.

"Oh, my God," Harry says.

"Fuck," Remus says.

"Merlin's saggy ballsack," Sirius says.

The storage locker is fairly large, and around the sides of the room, neatly laid out on shelves in flowery wooden boxes are sheafs of paper, photographs and postcards, folded clothes in plastic bags, but parked in the very centre is a shining red Beetle. There's not a single speck of dust in the place, and Harry narrows his eyes as he steps over the threshold, but as soon as he does, he feels the magic in the air.

"There she is," Sirius murmurs, and he reaches out, pressing his palm to the car bonnet, just above the right headlight. He has a small smile on his face as he looks down at it, and Remus looks relieved, as if he'd been expecting something much, much worse. "I thought Lily'd given it to your aunt, you see, when she and James went out to Godric's Hollow. It never occured to me to ask."

"I thought she'd sold it," Remus admits, shrugging his shoulders, and Harry glances between them before looking back to the car. It's from the sixties, he thinks, though he doesn't know anything about cars. There are plastic decals stuck to the front of the car: little bright flowers, lilies and petunias and roses. "We didn't want to mention it." A part of Harry is annoyed, irritated that neither Sirius or Remus ever mentioned that his mum had had a car, but the rest of him is glad they didn't get his hopes up. "We didn't know about this, Harry, I promise you."

"I believe you," he says quietly. He reaches out, thumbing over the plastic sticker of a bright, white rose, and drags his finger over the shining paintjob before leaning through one of the open windows of the car. There's a key in the ignition with two keyrings on it - one is an old hippie peace sign, and the other is a pink, fuzzy dice. Harry has the feeling it wasn't his mum who bought them. The seats are fine, tan-coloured leather, and he strokes them absently before he lets himself consider the rest of the room.

The boxes are made of painted wood, decorated with painted flowers or birds or stripes, and they're kept in insane order: they each have their own part of a shelf to occupy, and have black-painted labels in numerical order on them: "Photos #1", "Winter #1", "James #1", "Mum #1", "Dad #1"... Harry walks slowly forwards, and kneels down, pulling out a box from the shelf that is marked simply as "Misc #3", and he looks inside. Ordered by colour are a stack of perfectly tied ribbons, a stack of business cards, three snowglobes and a poster folded into eight. He picks out the poster, unfolding it to look at it, and he frowns at it.

"Did Mum like Abba?" he asks. Glancing back, he sees that Sirius is sprawled over the bonnet of the Beetle, paging fondly through its manual. Remus is stood just behind Harry, his hands in his pockets and his expression solemn. He leans forwards slightly, almost teetering, and Harry says, "You can look, Remus. If she left these things, if she saved them, they weren't just for me."

"Yes," Remus says. He doesn't give any indication whether it's an answer to the question or a response to Harry's statement. He just stands there, looking down at Harry with a quietly pained expression on his face. "Everything she did was like this, you know. Her notes were in sheafs tied with ribbons and with numbers on every page, and she kept her letters in boxes just like these..." He trails off, and then continues in an impossibly quiet voice, "In these boxes, actually. They're probably here somewhere."

"She had a Filofax," Sirius says, leaning off the car and letting his head hang down. He meets Harry's gaze. "You know what that is? It's like a little wheel for addresses and stuff. All the girls used to think she was mad." Remus lets out a sort of choking sound, and Harry watches his back as he walks out of the locker, his hands in his pockets and his head down. He's so excited to look through everything in the locker, everything there is, and a car! His mum's old car!

But Remus is crying, and Harry can't help but feel guilty.

Sirius gets off the bonnet of the car, dropping the Beetle's manual on the car's front seat and sitting down on the ground beside Harry. He puts his arm around Harry's shoulder, and for a second Harry lets himself lean into the half-hug as Sirius presses a kiss to the top of his head. "She was mad, you know," he says quietly. It's so fond and so sad that it makes Harry's eyes burn for a second, until he blinks away the want to cry. "Her Mum and Dad, they got her and Petunia both cars, when Lily was 17. Both of them were secondhand, obviously, but it meant a lot to them that they could both drive themselves around. I think your aunt sold hers when she got married."

"I bet," Harry mutters. "She get a Beetle too?"

"Nah," Sirius says. "I don't remember what it was, but it was a square, more serious car. It was grey." He looks like he's thinking hard about something, and after a long pause, he says, "She used to drive us all out together. She'd usually have Remus or James in the front with her, and the rest of us would be in the back, and if one of her girlfriends came alone - say it was us lot and Marlene McKinnon, I used to have to sit in James' lap, or I'd shove myself into the seat with Marlene in the front."

Harry laughs, shaking his head, and he pushes the box back onto the shelf.

"That's so stupid," he says. "And really dangerous."

"That's what Lily used to say," Sirius replies. He pats Harry on the back, and then he stands, leaving the locker and going out, Harry guesses, to find Remus. Harry is left cross-legged on the locker floor, surrounded by neatly ordered memories, and wondering where to start first.

Much as Harry wishes his mother had left him some fantastic vault of wonders, or left him a special letter telling him what she'd left for him specifically, or something, the locker's contents are kind of dull. All the locker is, it seems like, is somewhere his mum decided to put things in as her and Dad had gone to Godric's Hollow. The reason it had been paid so far in advance, according to the documents Harry finds on the subject, is that his dad had actually sorted out the locker's payment, and had apparently got a bit confused about Galleon to Sterling transer rates.

There is nothing here saved specially for him.

It's contracts, documents, manuals and instructions, for the most part. There are stacks and stacks of old photographs, half of them Muggle and half of them magical, and then there are the old clothes. Harry picks out an old cardigan from one of the bags: it's a thick jacket of sailor's wool with a Nordic design knitted into it, and he finds it's only a little too big for him.

"I bought that for James the year before you were born," Remus tells him, and Harry doesn't know if he's happy or sad.

The box that excites Harry most is a box of neatly ordered diaries, but when Harry looks inside, there's no traditional daily entry telling him exactly how and why and what his mother thought about this or that. There are just doodles and idle notes, shopping lists and half-hearted stanzas. For a minute or two, he feels angry at this distant, foreign woman, Lily Potter, for getting his hopes up, and then all he feels is guilt for having been angry at the woman who loved him more than anything else.

He takes the photos home, and the clothes, and he leaves everything else. He'll get back to the rest in time.

For the next few days, Harry doesn't really mention the storage locker. He, Remus and Sirius work on the map of Hogwarts for Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes, and at night, Harry goes through some of the old photographs. Most of them are Muggle ones from when his mother was a child - family photos of people Harry has never seen before, or of his mum and his aunt, or of his grandparents. A few are of his mum playing in a playground with an odd-looking kid that actually reminds Harry a lot of Snape - it makes him smile a little to think of it as he goes through the photographs.

He knows Snape is at least a half-blood, but the idea of him maybe growing up alongside Harry's own mum still makes him laugh: he still can't really think of him as a teenager, let alone as a little child. And especially not like this one. He has pale skin like Snape's, and awkward, black hair, but he's dressed in baggy grey clothes that don't fit him or the season, and he doesn't have the same posture or strength that Snape has - he's tiny and gangly at the same time, and he's ugly in a way that Snape just isn't.

The Snape-like boy in the photo reminds him of himself, before he got his Hogwarts letter.

"You ready to go back tomorrow?" Remus asks. Harry notices the way his gaze flicks down to the cardigan Harry's wearing, his father's cardigan. He nods his head, dropping the photographs back into the box beside him.

"Guess I have to be," Harry says.

"We could always take you out," Remus offers mildly. "Enroll you in some American school." Harry laughs. Remus smiles at him, looking tired, and then says, "You wanted there to be more in the locker. I'm sorry there wasn't. It wasn't- she never mentioned it to either of us, and I knew it wasn't something intended for you. It was just somewhere to put all of her Muggle things." Remus sounds so apologetic, and Harry meets his gaze as he looks up at him. Remus looks overwrought, and Harry wishes the full moon wasn't tomorrow. He wishes the full moon was decades away.

"I know," he says. "Thank you, Remus. Thanks. Where's Sirius?"

"Asleep on the sofa," Remus murmurs. "I was listening to that show on the radio, Herbologist's Hour, and he insisted he listen with me."

"How long did he last?"

"Six minutes. I timed him." Harry laughs, leaning back on his pillows. "Good night, Harry," Remus says, and he flicks out the light.

"Night, Remus," Harry replies, and he doesn't take off the cardigan when he lies down on the bed. He huddles in it, and when he breathes in, he imagines he can smell what his father smelled like - a cocoa-scented cologne, a scent of something like a stag, something vaguely fruity. It's stupid to think of, but it doesn't stop himself from pressing his nose right to the woolen fabric and going to sleep with those scents in his mind.


	82. Year Four: The Dead Beetle

"Don't talk to me, Potter," Draco says bitingly as soon as Harry enters the Slytherin common room. Arching an eyebrow, Harry watches the other boy stomp from the room and down into the dormitory. Given that he had had approximately no intention of talking to Draco, he finds himself slightly amused, and he looks from Draco to Blaise and Theodore.

"He been rehearsing that?"

"It's been very theatrical," Blaise confirms dryly, nodding his head and sprawling back against Theo's thighs. Theo, to his credit, is paying absolutely no attention to the other boy. He has his head buried in a green-covered book that declares itself to be The Compleat Guide. What, exactly, it's a complete guide to, Harry cannot actually tell. In mirror image to Blaise Zabini, Winston is curled on Theodore's other side, his little face pressed under the cloth of Theodore's outer robe, and Harry's lip twitches. He slips down into the library, entering a few books Remus had given him to settle onto the shelves, and he considers lying down and having a nap.

He'd stayed awake almost all night, looking through the last of his mum's old photos, and by the time he'd remembered he was back to school tomorrow, "tomorrow" had meant "in two hours". At the very least, there are no classes today, and he can be grateful for that.

Setting down the last of the books, he elects to flee the Slytherin common room for a little bit, and he makes his way up towards the great hall. In the entrance hall, students filter in from the courtyard outside, shaking off broomsticks or dizzily regretting their mother's portkey enchantment, and under McGonagall's keen surveillance, a few students step cleanly (or clumsily) out from the temporary Floo they've made of the fireplace.

Harry catches the first year Hufflepuff that had given him a Chocolate Frog card a few months back - Beth something, his mind vaguely recalls - as she flies out of the Floo at high speed, and he raises his eyebrows in McGonagall's direction as she shakes her head and regrets this year's Hufflepuff stock. He meets another Hufflepuff upon entering the great hall, though, and he offers Cedric a grin of greeting as he takes the mirror the other boy proffers him.

"Any luck?" Harry asks, and Cedric sighs, shaking his pretty head. He could be a model, Harry thinks vaguely. Cedric Diggory is exactly the sort of man they get for Muggle cologne adverts - some sparkly bottle called Vampire or Sin or Heaven. Harry holds the mirror in his hands, feeling its weight in his hands, and he turns it over to examine it. Engraved in a swirling text on the back are the words In degrees, I show the way.

"I've tried it under all kinds of light, carried it around - took it out under the moonlight, tried putting it into the lake... There's a bathroom just for us prefects, and it's got all different kinds of bubble bath, but it didn't do anything in the bath, either. I was thinking, what kind of angle does it want me to hold it at, how should I be making it reflect things?" Harry nods his head and keeps his expression neutral; likes Cedric, honestly, but he can't help but wonder what made the other boy try to take a bath with the mirror.

"I guess I'll try everything I can, then. We've still got time." Cedric earnestly nods his head, and he pats Harry on the shoulder as he turns back to the Hufflepuffs. Harry settles at the Gryffindor table, half-heartedly joining a conversation with Seamus Finnegan and Dean Thomas: the two are positively animated about an upcoming Quidditch match, and it's nice to let their excitement wash over him as he thinks on the mirror.

Maybe he should put it in the fireplace?

"Bit surprised to see you showing your face in here, to be honest, Harry," Seamus says, with only a slight edge of hostility. "I kind of think your man Malfoy has got the right idea."

"What do you mean?" Harry demands, glancing suddenly up from the mirror's gilded edge, and then he sees where Seamus' finger is pointing. On the front of today's Daily Prophet, in a smooth, green text is the byline Written by Rita Skeeter. "Oh, God," Harry groans, and reluctantly pulls the paper towards him. Skeeter had apparently waited the week until everyone was back in school to publish the "article" about he and Draco fighting in the flowerbeds - it suggests hamfistedly that both them and Viktor have been seduced by the terrible Hermione Granger, and implies that Viktor is a foreign predator.

It's one of her worst articles yet, and reading it makes Harry feel just slightly sick with anxiety - how many people read this nonsense?

"Cheers for letting me know, Seamus," Harry mutters, and he holds the mirror tightly under his arm, quickly heading out of the great hall and weaving his way through the dungeons towards the common room. He takes his time, meandering through the corridors he doesn't use as often and chatting half-heartedly with the lonelier portraits, and when he comes into the common room, he finds the other Slytherin boys all sat together. Theodore has his head in a book, and Draco is firmly ignoring Harry, instead staring at a piece of parchment and not actually writing on it. Blaise is half-asleep, leaning against Crabbe's shoulder with his legs crossed over Goyle's lap. Usually, Harry is sure they'd throw him off, but it's a bit chilly in the common room, and the fire seems reluctant to start properly.

He places the mirror in his wardrobe, and he returns to the common room with a book to read and a paper bag with some of his gifts from Christmas in it.

"Narcissa- er, I mean, Mrs Malfoy, she sent me these," he says, finishing awkwardly as Draco glares at him. He picks out a small, pink box, and he takes some of the pods inside out. He heads over to the fire, and drops them in. Immediately, it roars to life, sending a beautiful wave of heat through the room that makes a lot of the Slytherins sigh with relief, but then the pods crack open in the fire, and they send out their fiery wisps.

One is a stallion that gallops and jumps through the air, and another is a shark that dives and flips above their heads: they're called Flookes, and they're a Zonko's product, Harry is pretty sure. Theodore grins as he watches the flaming figures dance through the air, and despite himself, Draco looks like he's trying to hold back a smile.

"What's this, Potter?" he demands. It lacks the icy edge he attempts to add to it. Harry looks back to him, and he sees what Draco has pulled from the paper bag. Brandishing his new weapon with hilarious authority, Draco holds the fly swat Ted Tonks had sent Harry for Christmas.

"It's for killing flies," Harry says simply, sitting on the arm of Theodore's armchair and coaxing Winston into his lap. "You swat them with the flat bit. It's a Muggle thing - I got sent it as a bit of a joke." Draco furrows his silver brow, examining the swat with an unwarranted fascination.

"What's it made of?" Draco gives it an experimental wave, and he looks so ridiculous that Harry can't help but grin at him. He's still annoyed at the other boy, obviously, is still furious with what he did, but... Draco Malfoy is such a ridiculous idiot of a boy even when he's not holding a fly swat. It's difficult to take him seriously.

"Plastic," Harry answers, and is about to go on when Draco yells, "A-ha!" and slams the swat down on the coffee table. There's a quiet crunch, and Harry arches his eyebrow. Draco pulls the swat away from the table, showing the green shell of a beetle clinging to the swat's thatched main piece. "Well done."

"I thought flies and stuff couldn't get in here?" Blaise asks tiredly, opening one eye. There are enchantments on the doors and windows, but Harry knows they're not foolproof.

"It's probably from one of the NEWT Potions people," Theodore explains, without looking up from his book. "Alyssa Harvey was chasing after a pink mouse the other night. Put it in the fire, Draco, don't just leave it there." Taking out a handkerchief, Draco cleans up the remains of the beetle from the swat and the table and drops the whole, green mess into the fire. Just as the Flookes had, the crushed beetle lets up a little ghost of green - Harry thinks, just for a second, that the smoky ghost resembles a set of spectacles.

"Did you see Skeeter's article in the Prophet?" Draco asks, glancing back from the fire. Harry nods his head. Draco waits for a few, long moments, looking at Harry's face, and then he says, "Sorry."

"Apologize to Hermione and Viktor, Draco," Harry says. "There's no point apologizing to me." When Draco holds out the swat, Harry takes it, and they both linger for a few moments, staring at each other. Harry is torn - he wants to yell at the other boy and tell him how pathetic he's been, but he knows Lucius and Narcissa have probably already done that, albeit with completely different motivations. "You want to play chess?" he asks, the words coming out more coolly than he'd intended.

"You'll lose," Draco says.

"Bet you a Galleon I won't. Bet you this fly swat that I won't." Draco smiles at him.

"Fine," he says. He and Harry both know that Harry's going to bed a Galleon poorer and minus a fly swat, but in all honesty, that's sort of the point.

 _ **A/N:**_

 _ **Hey, guys,**_

 _ **Just to let you know that TSG is officially off hiatus, and I'm actually approaching it for my NaNoWriMo project, so I'll be writing a lot of it this November! I'm thinking the 50k will cover about the rest of fourth year, and I'm really excited to bring the plot forwards! I'm hoping to break a few hearts as I head onwards.**_

 _ **Glad to be back and thanks for reading,**_

 _ **Dictionary**_


	83. Year Four: The Neutral Zone

Harry gives a short, half-hissed sound as he fishes the mirror out of the fire. His thumb isn't quite burned, but it's a little too hot to be entirely comfortable, and he catches the mirror in the side of his robe, holding it within the safe glove the fabric creates. He carries it back to the Gryffindor table, setting it down, and he frowns at it. It steams just slightly in the air, and he frowns at it, tilting his head just to the side.

"And how did that go?" George asks dryly, glancing up from his toast and his copy of the _Owl Gazette_. He's wearing someone else's glasses, and Harry's made mildly uncomfortable by how different it makes his face look - suddenly, George resembles Percy in studious regard and stature, and it is... Incredibly wrong. Fred isn't anywhere to be seen, and it's early in the morning; neither Hermione nor Draco have made their way into the great hall yet.

"Take those off," Harry says, and George puts them on the top of his head. "What are they?"

"Study specs, something I'm playing with." George passes them over, and Harry takes them, momentarily hanging his own glasses in the collar of his robe as he slides them onto his nose. He has to squint to read the words in the Gazette, focusing exactly on the blurry lines of text, but once he does, he sees the way words are highlighted. Adverbs, nouns, adjectives, and underlined in red is a misprint in the text - one of the reporters had misspelled the word "commitment" as "comittment". "What do you think? Seems a bit better than spell-checking quills to me."

Harry nods his head, passing them back and sliding his own glasses back onto his nose, and George puts them back on, looking down at the page.

"I hate glasses on you," Harry says. "It's weird." George laughs. He leans back in his seat, putting the tip of his quill against the corner of his mouth, and he gives Harry a seductive wink. Harry kicks the bench out from under him, and he lets George drop onto the floor, laughing even more - laughing his head off, in fact. "It is." George pulls himself up off the ground, dragging the bench up with him, and he grins at Harry, pulling the glasses off and making a few adjustments to them with a little screwdriver.

"You got a thing for glasses, Harry, my lad?" he asks lightly, and Harry rolls his eyes.

"Yeah," Harry answers. "It's a thing called short-sightedness." He turns back to the mirror, letting the tip of his finger brush tenderly over the edge of the mirror's gilded edge. It's warm to the touch, but it isn't actually too hot anymore. Picking the mirror up, he examines it, turning it over between his hands, and then says, "It didn't go well." George nods his head seriously, giving the mirror a suspicious glance, but he doesn't say anything more. Harry sets the mirror aside and settles beside the other boy, taking a slice of toast for himself and taking a bite.

"Surely you're not giving up?" George asks mockingly as he replaces the specs.

"For this morning, anyway," Harry mutters, and he pages absently through his Potions textbook. "I've Snape first thing."

"Oh, good for you," George says. "Maybe he'll give you a hand, be nice and helpful, like." Harry sniggers, and he gives Fred a wave as he comes in.

"Oh, looking good, dear brother!" Fred proclaims, and he reaches immediately for the spectacles, plucking them off George's face and putting them on his own. Somehow, Fred looks even worse than George had with them on, and Harry winces visibly. "What, think you've got the monopoly on glasses, Potter?"

"They make you look like Percy," Harry says. Letting out a quiet shriek of horror, Fred tears the glasses off and drops them onto a plate of bacon. George shakes his head, muttering something about being the superior twin, and takes them back. Fred grins at George, waggling his eyebrows at his brother, and plucks pages six and seven out from between the pages of the _Owl Gazette_ that George is reading - the sports section. "How's Hermione reacted to Draco the past week or so?" Fred glances up from the Holyhead Harpies' Quidditch score, twists his mouth, and then bows his head again.

"Being a bit too nice for my liking," Fred says. "She should whack him around the head whenever she sees him."

"She's been alright with him," George says, with the same irritation as Fred. "You'd think she'd be a bit smarter with him." Harry doesn't miss the way Fred and George meet each other's gaze for a half-second, and he just follows the momentary quirk of Fred's lip and the downturn of George's - they can tease each other without even breathing. "I'm just saying, she deserves a lot better than that little bastard's company."

"As do you, obviously," Fred says lightly, with a nod in Harry's direction.

"As do you," George agrees, albeit as an afterthought. "Little sod's only going to get worse, you know. His father-"

"Oh, shut up about his father," Hermione says, dropping heavily into the seat between Harry and George and reaching for a kipper. "All of us have met him, so there's no point repeating something Arthur's said about him." George blinks stupidly at Hermione as Fred and Harry share a concerned glance; there are slightly dark bags under Hermione's eyes, and her hair is a little more frazzled than usual. "He's just a stupid little boy, George. Just don't think about him."

"You alright, Hermione?" Fred asks, a note of genuine concern in his voice.

"Mmm," Hermione hums, and refuses to say anything more as she begins to eat her breakfast. Harry lets the matter drop until they're walking down to the dungeons together a half hour later. "I was up all night. I kept thinking about that article Skeeter wrote. What she said about Viktor- God, I can't believe it's legal!" Harry listens as Hermione talks animatedly and furiously about what Skeeter had written about Viktor further into the paper - Harry had only scanned the front page, but within she'd continued with accusations as to his heritage (she'd insinuated both vampire and harpy) and his assumed infidelity. "If it were a Muggle newspaper, we could sue her for libel!"

"If it were a Muggle newspaper, she'd be out of a job," Harry agrees, and Hermione lets out a vicious "Ha!" of sound. As they come towards the door of the Potions classroom, she glances at Harry, her lips pressed together. "What?"

"Nothing," Hermione says, slightly too fast. "Just- you will be careful, won't you, Harry? You and-" She drops into a whisper. "You and Blaise. If she found out anything about it- What she knew about me and Viktor... It was like she was there, but we didn't see her." Harry nods his head putting his hands into his pockets as he shifts his bag on his shoulder.

"Yeah, I will be," he assents, and the two of them walk into Potions together.

"Longbottom," Snape says sharply from the corner of the room, where he'd been examining the contents of Crabbe and Goyle's shared cauldron. Harry watches Neville's shoulders suddenly stiffen, but it had been too late anywy - Harry sees the silvery steam coming out of Neville's cauldron, and the whole classroom smells like lemons. "Stop, and get out. Potter, ensure Longbottom's new poison does not kill us all."

"Yes, sir," Harry says as Neville walks out of the room with his shoulders hunkered down and his gaze on the ground. He lifts the cauldron off the burner, setting it gently down on the desk. The lemon scent gets even stronger, and Harry breathes through the fabric of his sleeve as it starts to become painful. "Professor, didn't you tell us to use lead-lined cauldrons, and not the iron ones?"

Snape stares at him from across the room, his nostrils flaring, and then says, delicately, "Retrieve your belongings and get out, all of you."

"That's grand, Neville," Seamus Finnegan says as they evacuate the classroom, clapping the other boy on the back as Ron laughs. "No more Potions for today!" Neville looks utterly miserable, and Seamus says brightly, "Oh, cheer up. You could've killed us all, and it turns out we're all going to survive!"

"That is true," Dean agrees magnanimously, and to his and Seamus' credit, Neville does seem a little cheered by their kind words: it's only now that Harry realizes there's blood on his face. Harry exhales, coughing slightly and rubbing at his nose.

"Oh, God," Hermione says. "Your nose is bleeding."

"Yours too," Harry says, holding a handkerchief to his bloody nose and holding another one out to her. Neville looks ready to cry, and Harry says, "It's alright, Neville. Could have been much worse."

"Okay," Hermione says, "Neville, Harry, Ron... Oh, God, probably you too, Theodore, Blaise... We should all go to the hospital wing." Theodore's left cheek has a single, bloody tear running down it, and he looks entirely uncaring of the fact. Neville actually looks the worst, blood on his lips and one of his eyelashes dark with blood. "Neville, why didn't you say?"

"I was hoping he wouldn't notice," Neville says, and Harry pats him on the back.

"Okay," Theodore says, standing straight. "Injured Slytherins, with me, Gryffindors with Granger."

"Nice alliterative phrasing," Hermione says.

"Thanks," Theodore replies cleanly. Harry is embarrassed for both of them. As everyone heads towards the hospital wing, Harry glances at his bag, and then swears. The mirror is still inside the classroom.

He knocks on the door, and Snape opens it, stepping from within a Bubble Charm that comes right to the edge of classroom. Snape has a Bubblehead Charm around him too, and with a gloved hand, he holds the mirror.

"I won't be returning this to you until it is appropriately clean," Snape says quietly. "Despite Longbottom's ardent attempts to murder us all, I have no wish to distribute the poison within the Slytherin dormitories." The mirror has Neville's failed potion clinging to it, and it frosts over the mirrored glass.

Harry stares at it.

Within the mirror, on the other side of the glass, Harry can see a wall of icy bricks. Instead of his own reflection, he sees the shifting corridors of a maze built of frost and snow.

"Indeed," Snape says, with an air of satisfaction, as if it was him that figured out the mirror's secrets. "It will be returned to you forthwith. Go to the hospital wing."

"Yes, sir," Harry says, and he coughs bloodily into his sleeve as he rushes to catch up with the rest of the class.


	84. Year Four: The Icy Mirror

"Okay, look at this," Harry says as he leans back, having cast a frosty spell over the surface of the mirror. The gilded mirror cakes with frost and ice, and Cedric wears the knitted gloves Harry had passed him to examine it.

He holds the mirror aloft in front of him, squinting slightly as he looks through the lens of the mirrored glass, and as he looks within it he tilts it and turns slightly on his feet, looking through the mirror to see the bricks of the castle inside.

"It looks like a maze," Harry says, his hands in his pockets as he looks up at the older boy. Cedric nods his head, his lips pressed together and his expression serious.

The castle is built of icy bricks, and the mirror acts as a kind of lens to look inside; tilting the mirror back makes it zoom out as if using a telescope, and as soon as it's zoomed out as far as possible, one can see the shape of the castle built out on the lake. Right at the top of the icy structure is a small tower, and placed on staffs are three flags, each with the emblem of one of the Triwizard schools emblazoned on it.

"So we have to go through the maze in the castle on the lake and find the flag?" Cedric asks, and then he nods his head. "This looks tough. You've played with this for longer than me - does it show you anything inside?"

"No," Harry says, shaking his head. "But I doubt we're going to be alone in there." Cedric nods his head seriously, and he puts the mirror down by his side, holding it against his hip.

"We should start studying monsters," Cedric says quietly. "While I doubt they're going to pack a Swedish Short-Snout into that maze, they'll probably put a lot of smaller monsters in there. Red caps, hinkypunks, Boggarts... And those are just the smallest things." Harry nods his head, but before he can turn to head away, Cedric catches him by the shoulder.

"Cedric?" Cedric's expression is quietly serious, and his thumb rubs a gentle circle against Harry's shoulder.

"No one else is going to tell you this," he says, "because this isn't school work. But you did a great job, Harry. You're doing way better at this than anyone could have expected, you know? We're going to win this, and it's going to be as much your win as mine, you know that?" Harry smiles up at the other boy - he's heard Hufflepuffs talking about how important it is to praise each other, but he's never been the recipient.

"Thanks," Harry says, unsure what else to say, and Cedric pats him on the back before he finally walks away.

"Oh, Hufflepuffs," Andromeda says, twisting her mouth and looking disapproving. "They're an odd bunch, aren't they?" Harry sits beside her out on the grass, holding a mug of cocoa in his hands. It's a cool Friday evening, but Dromeda had, completely unexpectedly, withdrawn a picnic blanket woven with a heating charm from her handbag after suggesting sitting down outside. "How are you feeling about it, Harry? The second task?"

"I'm feeling okay, I guess," Harry says, sitting cross-legged in his place; sweet heat rises up from the blanket beneath him, and he can't help but bask in it a little. Dromeda is wearing a light green robe with ribbons artfully tied all around the neck, and she doesn't seem to feel the cold at all. "I'm reasonably hopeful I won't die." Dromeda sniggers.

"That's always good," she says lightly. She takes a sip from her tea as she looks out over the lake, her heavily lidded eyes half closed. Harry can't help but feel slightly glad she's not wearing her healer's uniform - the lime-green hue of healers' robes is ugly enough, but mostly it's come to fill him with a sense of dread. Harry's never liked doctors all that much, and now that he's well-settled in the wizarding world, healers fill him with a similar anxiety.

"Was Snape glad you came in to see him?"

"I didn't come to see him," Dromeda scoffs, almost convincingly. "I brought in potions from St Mungo's for Poppy Pomfrey."

"No, you didn't," Harry says. "Snape brews all the potions here. Lucius praised it during the summer as a cost-saving measure and an assurance of quality."

"That smug bastard," Dromeda says, and Harry laughs. "Alright, I was in for a chat with him - I'm playing with a new potion for acne and wanted his input. You clever little twat." She says, half-irritably and half-affectionately, and Harry smiles at her. "You been using that fly swat?"

"Yeah," Harry says. "Draco thinks it's incredible." He takes another sip of his cocoa, and then says, "How do you think the second task is going to go? You didn't say."

Dromeda looks at him sideways, studying his face for a few long seconds. She reaches out, patting the side of Harry's face with one of her well-manicured thumbs, and then she leans away again, drinking her coffee with a grim determination. "YCou'll be fine," she says firmly, as if it's an order. "I'm telling you, Harry, you're not to die until at least the third task. Do you hear me?"

"Yeah, sure," Harry replies quietly, trying not to smile. Despite the joke, Dromeda looks more anxious than Harry has ever seen her, and he feels bad for her. He knows from her letters that she gets anxious at the slightest of things, let alone at things like this, where someone might actually die. Casting his mind out for something else to discuss, he says, "Have you heard anything from Ludo Bagman recently? Or about him?"

"Ludo Bagman?" Dromeda repeats, and she glances at Harry slightly suspiciously. "Why, has he been offering you things for your place in the Tournament? He's terrible for bets."

"No, nothing like that," Harry assures her. "No, it's- he actually owes money to Fred and George. A Hell of a lot of money, actually, from the World Cup. I was actually wondering in case someone'd brought him into St Mungo's - he won't answer any of their letters." Dromeda sets her mug down on the blanket beside her, folding her hands over her knees as she looks towards the forest, setting her jaw. "Given the gambling..."

"People have brought him in before, beat up one way or another," Andromeda agrees, giving a small nod of her head. "You weren't wrong to guess. We haven't seen him in a while, though. Mundungus Fletcher keeps complaining that he has new friends. He keeps hanging about that goblin bookies around the corner from Flockhart's Locks."

Harry glances at her, and then asks, very slowly, "Goblins? Ludo Bagman's friends with some goblins?" Dromeda nods her head, clucking her tongue and looking disapproving. "Drom?"

"Yes, love?"

"The betting shop - do they have their own ink? Their own special ink, I mean?"

"Oh, of course," Drom says. "Goblin-made stuff - can't have people enchanting their lotto sheets after they've made their bets, can you? Harry?" Drom calls after him as he scrambles up the hill, running as fast as he can, but Harry doesn't pay her any more attention - he wants to tell people about this as soon as he can.


	85. Year Four: Ludo Bagman

"- so I think Ludo Bagman entered me into the Triwizard Tournament with some goblins in order to make back his debt to them." Harry has been talking for five minutes straight, and Snape has not yet looked up from the essays he is marking on his desk. "Are you listening?"

"Of course," Snape says dryly. Marking an essay with a red-inked P, he sets it aside and begins to read through the next. His posture is perfect except for the slight crane of his neck, allowing his black eyes to flit over each line of untidy, scrawled text. "Are you quite finished?"

"Yes, sir," Harry says, a bit more irritably than he'd intended, and Snape arches a dark eyebrow at him. "Aren't you going to do anything?"

"What is it, Potter, that you recommend I do?" Snape asks cleanly. His quill dips into the pot and spatters criticisms like blood across the parchment; not a single drop of the stuff ever dares to drip onto his white sleeves.

"Well- well, get me out of the Tournament!"

"The Tournament's contract is magically binding. It does not care if Ludo Bagman entered you."

"Arrest Bagman!"

"Of course. Bring me my Auror's uniform and my training papers."

"Kick Bagman out of the Ministry!"

"Am I to be appointed Minister for Magic, or ought I merely use the authority of Harry Potter to remove him from his position?" Snape spits out Harry's name like it's written in venom, and Harry glares at him, his arms crossed over his chest. Finally, Snape glances up from the essays he is marking, and he meets Harry's gaze, his lips a thin, pale line. "Potter, if you wish to open an official line of enquiry, contact the Auror office and make a statement. If you wish for Mr Bagman to lose his position, make a complaint. If you wish to exit the binds of the Tournament..." Snape trails off, thoughtfully. "I suppose one might approach an artful suicide."

"This the most you've ever spoken to me in one go, and it's to tell me to kill myself," Harry says, and for some reason, he finds it funny. Snape stares at him so icily that Harry's mouth freezes mid-chuckle. "I wish you'd do something."

"Such as?"

"I don't know, care that people keep trying to murder me?"

"If Mr Bagman has wagered money on you, Potter, he is doing the opposite of trying to murder you. Call the Aurors and-"

"If I call the Aurors and goblins get arrested, then won't the rest of them try to actually kill me?" Snape glances up from the essays he's marking, seeming pleasantly surprised. His mouth is quirked into something that is almost a smile.

"Very good, Potter. You're thinking!" Snape gives a singular, sarcastic clap of his sallow hands. Harry sighs, leaning against the doorframe and pressing his forehead against the cool, dark wood. After a short pause, his eyes closed, he hears the quiet scratch of Snape's quill on parchment.

"So I don't call the Aurors. And I don't lodge a complaint. Not yet. But once the Tournament is over and the goblins don't need him...?" The only response to what he says in an overwhelming silence; Harry opens one eye, and looks at Snape. The other man isn't so much as glancing at him. "Okay. So I win the Tournament." He looks at Snape.

Snape is staring at him, locking eyes with Harry, and Harry stares back. Harry frowns, furrowing his brow slightly, and then he realizes. "Except that he might be betting on something other than me. He-" Harry takes in a small breath. "Bagman owes the Weasley twins money - they bet at the Quidditch World Cup that Ireland would win but that Krum would catch the Snitch. What if Bagman bet that Hogwarts would win, but that one of us would die?"

Snape's expression doesn't change. He doesn't even twitch.

"What if it's me?" Harry feels his blood run cold, and asks in a whisper, more to himself than to Snape, "What if he's bet on Cedric dying?"

"It would seem you have a lot to think about," Snape says delicately. The "Get out!" is silent, but Harry hears it, and he goes.

"Did he give you any advice?" Hermione asks. "Professor Snape?"

"He never does," Harry mutters, and he presses himself as far into the beanbag George had retrieved from somewhere or other and placed in the office of WWW, safely ensconced in the ground floor of the Astronomy tower. More comfortable furniture and an old, thick rug had been brought back with the twins after they'd gone home for a weekend in the holidays, and there's no longer the problem of pervading chilliness as Hermione does the accounts. "What do you think I should do?"

"I don't know," Hermione says. She leans back in a battered armchair, a book of accounts held loosely in her lap, and she watches him. "But if he's betting on one of you dying, how do you know it's not for this task? How do you know how he's going to do it, or when? And- Harry, I don't mean to make light of it, but how is Bagman going to kill you if the actual tasks fail to? How would he be able to kill you, or kill Cedric, without it being obvious?"

"I don't know," Harry says. There's a long, drawn-out pause between them, and Harry asks, "Will you help me look at creatures for the castle, the maze?" Hermione nods her head in assent, blinking her brown eyes slowly.

"Harry," she murmurs, "Let's start with something else. Let's-" She grins at him, puts her resized, straight teeth on show. "Let's do riddles."

"Riddles?"

"You don't think there'll be at least one sphinx in there?" Harry grins, and then he nods his head, leaning forwards and meeting Hermione's gaze. They go through riddles for a while, and when Hermione goes to study in the library, Harry lingers in the safety and comfort of their little office, and he naps for a time.

That is, of course, until Fred and George come in.

"Yes, Alastor. Yes, sir. Yes, thanks. No, I don't want you to- Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Thank you, Alastor. This is really good of you and Tonks. No, sir, I won't. Uh- Okay... Yeah. Um, no, I'll keep that in mind. Thanks, Alastor, bye." Harry pulls away from the Floo where he'd been kneeling, and he tosses his head, shaking the soot out of his hair.

"What was that last bit?" George asks. He and Fred had managed to convince Arthur to hook the Floo up for the night and had given him the powder as soon as they'd come in. Harry pulls a face and shakes his head slightly.

"He said that Ludo had an old injury on his thigh, and that worst case scenario, I should- I should "pinch and twist"." Harry wrinkles his nose as he says it, and he hears George make a small, gagging noise.

"That sounds like Moody," Fred says, with some affection. Fred isn't any more comfortable with Mad-Eye Moody than Harry is, but he seems to genuinely like the terrifying old freak. "That's just the right combination of well-meaning care and horrific violence. But he and Tonks are going to keep an eye on him?"

"Yeah," Harry says with a nod of his head. "I mean, I'm hoping it's mostly Kingsley and Tonks, to be honest. I'd rather Moody not kill Bagman or get him eaten by a bin or something before I know exactly what he wants to do."

"Bastard," George says, curling his lip. He reaches out, patting Harry on the shoulder, and then he pulls Harry into a half hug, ruffling his hair. "You're going to be fine."

"People keep telling me that," Harry says. "It's not all that comforting." Fred reaches out, grasping Harry's right hand between two of his own and clutching it a few inches away from his own chin.

"Harry," Fred says in a tender whisper. "You are almost definitely going to die."


	86. Year Four: The Second Task

"A mirror!" Harry says suddenly, and Cedric lets out the most dignified cheer a man possibly can with his mouth full of half-chewed toast, throwing his hands in the air in a victory pose. Harry grins, taking a sip of his pumpkin juice, and he leans back in his seat. "You think we're prepared?"

"We're prepared for a Sphinx, Harry, I know that," Cedric assures him, giving a nod of his head, and when he laughs he shakes himself, sweeping crumbs from the front of his robes. Harry has actually enjoyed this - over breakfast now they've merely been exchanging one riddle after another, each trying to stump the other, but Harry is pleased with how they've done thus far. The training in defence has almost been easier than the riddles; he and Cedric have played with new defensive spells and engaged in casual duels, doing their best to improve their reflexes, and now that the Second Task looms over them, mere minutes away, Harry feels well-prepared.

The nerves coiled in his stomach are nothing compared to the excitement he feels, making him jittery and making it difficult for him to possibly keep still. He feels ready for the task, and more than that, he wants it to come. He wants to get into it, wants to feel the blood rushing in his ears as he and Cedric move through the maze that the ice castle will be. Harry feels like he's had something good to work for for the first time in ages, and he can't wait to get going with it.

"You think we'll win?" Cedric asks, beaming, and Harry gives a stout nod of his head.

"Undoubtedly!" He and Cedric sit at the Hufflepuff table with a few defense texts scattered on the table surface between them, but they've not paged through a single one thus far, instead focusing on riddles and the like. Harry's just so certain there'll be a Sphinx in the castle, for no reason at all, and he's excited to face it, to face everything that comes up! Harry glances at Cedric's face for a moment as the other boy pulls his watch out of his pocket and takes a glance at it. It's old and he can see it's used, but the gold is well-polished and of very high quality, as is tradition for a young wizard of age. For a long few seconds, Harry wonders if he should share what he and the others had figured out about Bagman and the goblins.

Harry's had nearly a month to tell Cedric about it, but each time he'd considered it he'd held off.

Cedric, raised by a straightforward man like Amos Diggory and surrounded by Hufflepuffs all the time, is just too moral, and too trusting, Harry's pretty certain. What if he goes to the Ministry, to the Aurors, too soon? What if he gets killed as a result?

But then, what if Bagman wants him dead for the competition?

Harry drums his fingers on the underside of the table, tapping his foot on the ground. He doesn't like not telling Cedric something that might well affect him heavily, but nor does he want Cedric to fuck things up worse than they already are by being a good Hufflepuff and trusting the Ministry to do something well.

"You okay there, Harry?" Cedric asks, and Harry nods his head, standing and adjusting his robes. The great hall, which is crowded with people hurriedly eating their breakfast, goes abruptly quiet, and Harry feels hundreds of eyes on the back of his neck as he and Cedric begin to move towards the door. Then, he hears a loud whoop from the Gryffindor table, recognizing the loud voice of Seamus Finnegan, and a cheer goes up from all of the Hogwarts students. The Beauxbatons and Durmstrang lingerers seem startled by the sudden noise, and Harry and Cedric grin and wave at the others as they jog out of the entrance hall, through the courtyard and down towards the lake.

The benches from the stadium have been moved to stand around the lake edges, but even with the huge walls the colosseum creates, Harry can see the silvery spire of the castle with its brightly coloured flags hanging from around the crenellations. Harry and Cedric share a grin, and then they duck into the blue tent opened out on the frost-covered grass. Fleur and Viktor are already present, settled in seats: Fleur is straight-backed with one pretty leg delicately crossed over the other, and Viktor is slouched in a chair, absently playing with a piece of loose thread on the sleeve of his robe.

"Everybody ready?" Ludo Bagman asks delightedly, clapping his fat hands together. Bagman is met with stony silence from Krum, Fleur and Harry (though perhaps not for the same reasons), and an awkward tension from Cedric. He glances between them, shifting from one of his feet to the other, and then he coughs and holds out a bag. "You'll just pick out your flag to see who goes first. Rita Skeeter was meant to be here getting your pictures taken as you went, but her photographer says she's gone missing."

"Quel dommage," Fleur says in an icily sarcastic tone, and Harry stifles his laugh as she leans forwards and reaches into the bag. First comes out a dark flag with the Durmstrang crest on it, and then Beauxbatons, and then Hogwarts. Each champion is to run through the maze individually (or dually) and complete it as fast as possible: the task is finished when the champions have their hands on the flags. Bagman stresses that the flag must be grasped by Harry and Cedric at exactly the same time, so Harry suspects immediately that the flags are enchanted to be portkeys - they'll probably magic the champions down to the judges' table to get their scores.

"So," Fleur says, giving Viktor a short wave as he makes his way out of the tent, rolling his odd, round shoulders and making them crack slightly as he straightens his neck. "From now, we wait." Bagman, thankfully, makes his way out to the colosseum to watch the tasks, leaving a lower Ministry official at the tent to usher them out as Krum finishes. The three of them wait for what seems like forever, and Fleur's pretty face is pale with quiet anxiety as she waits in her seat.

Despite the energy he and Cedric had shared that morning, Harry doesn't feel any interest at all in making conversation. He sits in mostly silence, running defensive spell after defensive spell through his mind, remembering the crucial jinxes, curses and countercurses, spells and charms and enchantments that might just come in useful. He feels ready, but a part of him resents how little time he's had to study in comparison with Cedric, but it's nothing for him to think about now.

Now, he has to think about winning.

"Good luck, Fleur," Cedric says as she stands to go: his smile is so warm and the words so genuine that Fleur doesn't even bother to apply some witty response. She merely smiles weakly, gives the smallest of nods, and flows from the tent in the graceful way she moves anywhere. As the young Ministry man opens the tent entrance to allow Fleur outside, Harry hears a fragment of speech from a speaker using the Sonorus Charm, but he only hears the barest snatch of sound before it's cut off by the closing of the tent flap.

Harry and Cedric share looks as the silence fills the tint again, but they don't break it. They sit in the quiet until the Ministry man says, "And you, lads. Good luck."

Drawing their wands, Harry and Cedric walk out of the tent. A walkway has been set up leading into the colosseum around the lake, and the two of them walk under a wooden archway and out to the beach around the lapping waters.

Suspended at the edge of the lake is the great vessel of the Durmstrang ship, its black sails tattered and moving in the breeze and its great, dark hull barely brushing the water's surface. The rest of the lake is completely dominated by the great, silver-blue structure, crafted of icy blue brick and almost as high as Hogwarts itself, though not nearly as sprawling and wide-reaching. Hundreds upon hundreds of people are seated in the benches in the colosseum around the lake, and Harry is conscious of them in a way he never was with the first task.

But how will they see them?

The announcer - a fat little man with a green bowler hat obviously modelling his style after Cornelius Fudge - has a Sonorus charm on against his throat, and although his voice is loud and echoing across the flat surface of the water and towards the icy castle, Harry doesn't really hear him. He and Cedric share a glance, and they walk down towards the little dock on the lake.

A wooden bridge has been laid out between the dock and the castle entrance, and Harry and Cedric stand together with their backs straight, facing Ludo Bagman and Amelia Bones. Bones' hair is slightly damp, and she looks to be in ill-humour, but Bagman is predictably in very good spirits. "Okay!" he says, clapping his hands together and rolling his shoulders. He reminds Harry of the bulldog bobblehead his Uncle Vernon had received a few years back as a reward from his insurance company. "Now, lads, you'll be going into the castle. It's almost like a maze! The plan is to get up to the tower on top and retrieve your flag! It's very important that the two of you grab it at the same time!"

Harry feels the slightest inkling of relief - if both of them have to grab it at the same time, it's probably a portkey or something, and it can't affect one of them and not the other. Whatever Bagman has planned with the goblins, it must be planned for the third task. At least, he hopes.

"Your audience can see you through the walls of the castle, but you can't see them - no cheating, now!"

"How are we supposed to cheat?" Harry asks dryly. Bagman laughs, nervously.

"Well then!" he says, clapping his hands together again, a little more nervously this time. Harry narrows his eyes as he looks at him, but before he can say anything to Bagman, Amelia breaks in.

"There'll be a count in a few moments. When you see sparks shoot from our wands, you may begin," Amelia says cleanly, and Harry doesn't think he imagines the way her lip curls when she glances at Bagman and ushers him towards the panel of judges waiting on the shore.

Cedric and Harry stand together in the middle of the bridge where a starting line has been drawn in chalk. Already, staring forwards at the closed, icy doors of the castle, Harry's trying to think of the best way through.

"We should have Summoned our brooms," Harry whispers. "We could fly right up to the tower like that. Thirty seconds, fifty points."

"We wouldn't get fifty points," Cedric says, giving Harry a little grin. "Karkaroff would give us eight points at most." Harry sniggers. Behind them, Harry hears a loud bang and the sound of sparks, and Harry and Cedric bolt forwards.

"Bombarda!" Harry yells, flicking his wand hand forwards without stopping the pound of his sensible dragonhide boots on the bridge beneath them, and the ice shatters like thick glass, cracking in place, but the doors don't come apart.

"Incendio," Cedric says, making a circular shift of his wrist Harry hasn't seen before: as a flaming umbrella spans wide from Cedric's wand like a Bubblehead Charm, Harry feels the heat of it on his face as the ice melts at speed, leaving a heavy, rushing puddle around Cedric and Harry's feet. It runs off the edges of the bridge, and Harry distantly hears it dripping into the lake below.

Inside, the castle is brightly lit, cold winter sunshine coming in through the glassy walls: Harry and Cedric share a glance before the two of them step inside. Their boots make quiet, echoing clatters on the cold, ice floors, and the chill of the castle's corridors hits Harry hard as he steps over the threshold. He wishes he'd worn his cloak as well as his robes, but it's too late now, and he and Cedric move forwards and through the entrance hall of the castle. They both creep forwards with their wands held up in front of them, and neither of them bother, as they thought they'd have to, to cast Lumos.

For the longest time, they walk as speedily as they can, shoulder to shoulder, through the halls of the castle, each of them scanning the icy walls, but nothing seems to jump out at them. Nothing at all.

It's when they approach a huge, sprawling staircase that something finally happens: he and Cedric step up together, shifting their soles on the too-smooth surface of the ice, when from the top of the stairs comes a mighty roar. The thing is huge, sandy-coloured with a great red mane, and with a scorpion's tail towering over its head. Harry stares, mouth open wide, as the Manticore rumbles down the stairs towards them; Harry swings back his wand and yells, "Bombarda!" as he throws it forwards again. It hits the Manticore in its light-skinned, human face, and the thing lets out a surprisingly high-pitched scream.

It wriggles in the air, twisting and changing its shape as it spins and struggles, and it screams out even louder.

Cedric, pale-faced, whispers, "It's a Boggart." And then, louder, "It's a Boggart." He raises his wand to cast at it, but the thing scrabbles away, throwing itself out of a thin window with a loud smash.

"Are you scared of Manticores?" Harry asks, trying not to smirk. Cedric, in the gentlest fashion possible, cuffs Harry upside the head - Harry barely feels it. Cedric's cuff hasn't got anything on Snape's, or any of the Slytherin upperclassmen's. He feels more like he's been smacked by a bag of feathers than by a badger.

"Come on, Harry," Cedric says. "Let's get going." After that, it's one thing after another - birds spitting acid throw themselves at Harry in a cloud of green and black, and Cedric spells them into flames; they fight off a little crowd of Red Caps that descend from one of the ceilings; worst of all, when walking down a long corridor several floors up, the ground drops out from beneath Harry and he hits a dark pool of freezing water. He struggles in the sudden, even worse chill, fighting off the sudden, grey hands on him and casting spells through mouthfuls of water, repelling Grindylows as far away as he can manage.

"You alright, Harry?" Cedric says sharply when he finally pulls Harry up out of the water, gasping for breath, and Harry nods his head, kicking a Grindylow in the chin and hearing its neck crack as he drags himself up onto the corridor floor again. He mutters a thank you when Cedric spells him dry, and the two of them keep on moving.

"I think that's the tower," Harry says, pointing to a spiral staircase, and Cedric nods his head. They move forwards, ready to make their way upwards-

And that is when the Sphinx appears.

It saunters into their path and sits directly before the staircase, leaning back on its haunches and watching him and Cedric with an expectant expression. Harry grins, glancing at Cedric, and they both step forwards.

"Well," Harry says, putting his hands on his hips. Immediately, he realizes how ridiculous he must look, and puts them at his sides again. "Have you got a riddle for us, Ma'am?"

"We've been studying up," Cedric says earnestly. The Sphinx glances between them, arches an eyebrow, and then yawns. It has an awful lot of teeth.

"No," the Sphinx says airily. Harry is stopped short, and he stares at it, tilting his head.

"Eh?" Cedric says. For a second, he sounds just like a boy from Devon. "I mean- er- I don't understand. You don't want us to answer a riddle?"

"No," the Sphinx says again, simply. "Tell me a joke."

"What?" Harry demands. "What do you mean?"

"Make me laugh," the Sphinx says, drawing out the sound of the word between its teeth, and Harry turns, slowly, to look at Cedric. Cedric's expression is completely perplexed. "I've told enough riddles today."

"Why don't you just tell us one you told earlier?" Cedric asks. "Please."

"No," it says. "I'm bored of riddles. Tell me a joke."

"I don't know any jokes," Cedric whispers.

"Nor do I," Harry says. It's a lie. The problem is that all of the jokes coming to mind are... Well. They're exactly the kinds of jokes that get told in the Slytherin common room. The Sphinx stares out, resolutely, and it sets its great jaw. "Er- well. Okay. So- so this man, a blind man, walks into a pub. And he's having his drink, and he asks if anyone wants to hear a Hufflepuff joke." Harry hears Cedric's head whip to the side more than he sees it. "And the barman says, "Sir, I won't lie to you, but I'm a Hufflepuff, there's a Hufflepuff scarf over the fireplace, and there's a good twelve other Hufflepuffs here in the bar with you. You might want to rethink that." And, after a pause, the blind man says, "Oh, aye, I won't bother then. Not if I'm going to have to explain it that many times.""

"Oi!" Cedric says. "Right, Madam, um- Why do Slytherins always cross the road twice? Because they're doublecrossers!"

"Right!" Harry snaps. "What do you call a Hufflepuff with one braincell? Lucky!" Cedric curls his lip. "What do you call a Hufflepuff with two braincells? Pregnant!" Cedric is stiff as a board, his hands clenched at his sides, but before he and Harry can begin arguing, the Sphinx breaks in.

"What," it asks quietly, and with a light curiosity, "is a Hufflepuff?" Harry presses his lips together.

"It doesn't matter," Cedric says. "Or the Slytherin thing, actually. Um- I don't... Do you know any jokes that aren't...?" Harry shakes his head slowly, and then Cedric suddenly jumps.

"Oh, oh, Ma'am! Okay, so, how does a train eat?" The Sphinx stares at Cedric. "Do you- sorry, do you know-"

"I know what a train is," the Sphinx says archly.

"It goes- Chew chew!" Cedric all but whistles the words. There's a short pause, and then, the Sphinx lets out a quiet snort of laughter. With that, it saunters past them, and allows them the space to get up the stairs, and Cedric and Harry run forwards as one.

"Grand score of 44!" Hagrid says, clapping his hands together as Harry and Hermione troop down towards his hut. Harry's shoulders are down, his hands in his pockets, and he stares down at the dew-stained grass. Cedric and Harry, upon being given their scores, had walked in completely opposite directions. Who ever bloody heard of a Sphinx wanting to hear jokes anyway? "Well done, Harry! Well done!" Harry mutters a half-hearted "Cheers," and he steps into Hagrid's little garden when Hermione pushes open the gate for him.

"Where the chickens, Hagrid?" Hermione asks. Hagrid tuts, making a face as he opens up the door, giving Fang a rough scratch behind the ears.

"They're dead," he says. "All them and my two roosters - nasty little sickness called Feathergrote went through two of them, and I had to put the rest down. I'll have to wait until the new year to get any more in, I expect - you need to let the lingering bits of it fade away. I'll give the coop a good clean out, of course."

"How'd they get it?" Harry asks, frowning slightly. "Is that a common illness?" Hagrid shrugs his shoulders.

"Egh, common enough," he says dismissively, shaking his great head. "It's just a real shame. D'you want a cup of tea, Harry, Hermione?"

"Yes, please," Harry says at the same time as Hermione, and the two of them make their way into Hagrid's hut.


	87. Year Four: Dreams of Dreams

Harry feels his throat move, feels the vibration in it as he screams, but he barely hears the sound; it echoes around the inside of his head distantly, like it's happening in a far off cave. He doesn't know how far he falls for, but he feels his stomach almost leaping out of him as he drops too-fast, too-soon, too far: when he hits the ground, it's surprisingly softly. The leaves underneath him make quiet crinkling sounds, and although they're dusted with snow, Harry doesn't feel the cold.

He's on his feet now, moving forwards with his bare feet (where are his shoes?) making crunching sounds as they crush the mulch and twigs and dropped leaves underneath him. The forest canopy is black and high above his head, and in the distance he hears bird calls and the whistle of arrows through the air, and fires crackling: centaurs. Although he looks one way and then the other, he doesn't see them, so he simply keeps on walking, walking until he cannot hear them anymore.

There's a sickly scent on the air, too supernaturally saccharine to belong to something that isn't magical, and as he inhales, he feels the scent take him over. There's an edge to the scent, a heavy edge, and he realizes what it is when he steps in it.

Staring down at the grey pooling around his bare feet, he smells the unicorn blood on the air, almost tastes it on his tongue. He feels himself gag, and he drops to his knees in the silver surrounding him, letting it soak into his robes as it did all those years ago, and he puts his hands on the unicorn's shoulder. It isn't breathing beneath him, and it's so cold under the pads of his fingers, and he realizes that one of its eyes is entirely gone from its head, pecked away by something or other. He'd been blinded by the reflection of the moonlight (where is the moon coming from? hadn't the canopy been so black?) on the unicorn's blood, but now he sees he's looking only at its top half. Its haunches aren't in sight, and the unicorn's rib cage has been ripped open by something with great, mighty jaws.

Green tinges some of the unicorn's soft, white hair, and when Harry drags his fingers over the stain, his skin hisses with steam, and he feels the pain of acid.

He cries out, again, but he barely hears it: he hears only the smooth sound of scales on crunching leaves and twigs, and when his head whips to the side, he sees a blind monster staring back at him. Its head is huge, and where its eyes ought have been are red-black scabbed-over wounds. When it opens its mouth, Harry screams.

"Harry!" Draco says sharply, and Harry feels the other boy's thin, piano-player's hands on his shoulders (does Draco play piano? Harry knows Lucius does), shaking him awake. Draco's hands are cold, and his face is concerned. "You were- you were screaming. Are you okay?"

"Yeah," Harry tries to say, but it comes out as a croak. His voice is hoarse, and he has to cough into his hand, reaching for the glass of water on his bedside and taking greedy gulps. The dormitory door flies open, and Francis stands there, dressed hurriedly in a dressing gown over mermaid-decorated pyjamas and looking panicked.

"Potter? You alright? I could hear you all the way-" Francis takes in a small breath, and he seems to relax. "Nightmare, Potter?"

"Yeah, Francis. Draco wasn't murdering me or anything." Francis' lip twitches, and he seems to almost laugh, but not quite. He still looks a bit pale, but he nods his head.

"Well," he says awkwardly, quietly in his more usual voice. "Can't be too careful. Night, lads." Francis Drummond pulls the door shut behind him, heading back down the corridor to his own room. Draco sits on the edge of Harry's bed, sat on one of his own feet, and Harry feels the heavy weight of the other boy's grey gaze on him.

After a long, drawn-out silence, Draco says, "Was it a nightmare? About- about the tournament?" Harry shakes his head.

"No, no, it was just about- Hagrid's had his roosters die, down by his hut. I guess it just made me think of the Basilisk." Draco squints at him. "Rooster cries kill Basilisks, Draco," Harry adds.

"I knew that," Draco says sharply. Harry raises his eyebrows at him, and Draco huffs a short sound. "Well, the Basilisk-" He hesitates. "Is it still out there? Isn't it dead? I thought-" Draco stops short again. "It's not dead. It's just out there, in the Forbidden Forest? It's been out there all this time? My father-"

"Oh, shut up," Harry interrupts him. "Go back to bed." Draco's white cheeks are tinged red with an angry flush, but he stomps back to his own bed all the same, and Harry blows out the candle Draco had lit beside him. In the darkness, Harry lies still for a long, long time, his eyes closed as he does his best to get back to sleep.

He doesn't manage it.

Harry and Cedric sit in silence in the empty classroom. Cross-legged on one of the desks, Harry sits with a small stack of books in his lap - histories of the Triwizard Tournament and books that go into detail as to the tasks. They're not being given any clues, this time, except that when Harry had looked out of the window that morning, the colosseum had been returned to its place on the Quidditch pitch, and was no longer hovering in pieces around the lake. Now replaced, its centre is utterly empty, except that all of the lawn has been stripped away: in the middle of the oval stadium is just a brown dirt floor.

"You want to look at precedents, then?" Cedric asks, slightly stiffly. He's sat with one leg up on the desk he's sitting on, leaning with his forearm on his knee, and the other leg dangling down. He looks like one of the dashing figures posed on the front of Pansy Parkinson's racy comics - it's not a pose Harry has ever thought someone would actually take on.

"Yeah," Harry says. Another long silence spans the short distance between them. "So, Slytherins are doublecrossers, then."

"And Hufflepuffs are stupid," Cedric returns archly. It's the closest to a sharp word Harry's ever actually heard out of him, given that Cedric Diggory is Hufflepuff's golden, shining example of manhood and Hufflepuffhood. Harry presses his lips together, leaning back slightly and crossing his arms over his chest, scowling at the other boy.

"You really think being thought of as dim is as bad as being thought of as evil?" Harry asks, and Cedric scoffs.

"Well, you guys aren't exactly shining examples of friendship, are you?"

"Yes, we are," Harry says. "We're just loyal to people who deserve it rather than anyone who smiles at us in the street. We don't blindly follow anyone who looks good to us."

"And what about You-Know-Who?" Cedric demands. "Did he look good to you?"

"I don't know," Harry says, "Why don't we call my parents and ask them?" Cedric stops short, paling slightly. His neck and the tips of his ears are slightly red, but the flush doesn't show in his cheeks, and Harry can see the way he stiffens, sitting forwards properly and clenching his fists in his lap.

Cedric's nostrils flare, and he says in a sharp, acidic tone, "Do you not think it's a bit disrespectful to your mum and dad's memory to use them as a trump card in every argument you have?"

"No idea," Harry says, shrugging his shoulders. "I guess if I could, Cedric, I'd ask them." The silence, this time, is not silent at all: Harry can distinctly hear the sound of his own heartbeat ringing in his ears, and he can hear both of their heavy breathing, and the creaking of the desk Cedric's sat on: he can't stay still on it. "I don't think Hufflepuffs are stupid, Cedric. It's just the only jokes I hear are Hufflepuff jokes, and I couldn't think of any others under pressure."

"And Slytherins aren't necessarily doublecrossers, but-"

"What the fuck do you mean, necessarily?"

"Your animal is a snake!"

"Your animal's a bloody badger! What are they good for, except for giving cows TB and getting hit by cars?" Momentarily, Cedric's face goes slightly blank, and Harry adds, "Or for killing dogs, I guess." Cedric throws himself to his feet, the desk giving a relieved whine behind him.

"Badgers are noble animals, Harry. They're fiercely loyal, intelligent, and they bury their dead. They're hard workers, and-"

"They're basically blind," Harry interrupts. "A bit like your lot, really. Kind of like badgers, in that you dig yourselves into a little hole and try to ignore the world while you eat worms."

"Really?" Cedric demands. He's angrier than Harry's ever seen him, his eyes glinting with furious passion. "Because badgers stay in their groups and protect each other. Slytherins only want to protect long dead ancestors, and I can tell you there were more Slytherin Death Eaters than from any other house."

"Yeah," Harry says, standing up himself and immediately regretting it as he's forced to look up into Cedric's face. Why does the other boy have to be so tall? "Because being excluded and hated by your entire student body from the age of eleven totally isn't going to have a negative effect on your choices, is it? Don't you realize that's exactly what Voldemort wanted?" Harry ignores the way Cedric winces. "Don't you realize that's why he pushed the pureblood rhetoric so much? He doesn't care if anyone's pureblood, Cedric, not really. He just cares about power."

"A Slytherin through and through, then." Cedric says, and Harry's lip curls. "Maybe it's better if we just split the work now. Working together obviously isn't working out."

"Obviously," Harry says, and he picks up his books, and he leaves Cedric in the classroom behind him.

"Without trying to be too mean about it," Hermione says delicately, "that was really stupid of you, Harry."

"Can't help but agree with Granger," Blaise says reluctantly, as if the idea itself is distasteful. "Why in Merlin's name would you do that?"

"He thinks Slytherin is a house of evil traitors." Blaise watches him for a moment with his deep, brown eyes.

"Well, Harry, it is. We're known for our cunning, not our deep-hearted power of love." Harry throws a paperback from his bag at him, but Blaise just catches it, examining it with an artful disinterest. Harry and Hermione had been settled at the top of the Astronomy Tower, legs dangling down from between the crenellations at the edge of the tower, when Blaise had joined them, having spied them from the courtyard downstairs. Now, they're all sat on the ground, leaning back against the tower's inner wall. "You're going to get killed. One of you is, at least."

All at once, Harry remembers Ludo Bagman and the goblin betting agency, and he frowns, tapping his fingers on his leg.

"Draco said you had a nightmare," Hermione says, a little desperately, obviously trying to change the subject.

"Oh, is he Draco to you now, Granger?" Blaise asks sweetly. "He will be glad to hear that." Hermione throws a book at him - other than Harry's very light paperback copy of T.S. Eliot's Cats, this is Hermione's pilfered copy of Moste Advanced Poisons, and it hits Blaise in the chest like a Bludger, knocking the wind out of him. He pulls a face, leaning back on his hands and rubbing his chest. "The Gryffindors should make you a Beater. Merlin's beard, Granger, where did you learn to throw like that?"

"I was on the local cricket team at school," Hermione says, and Harry glances at her, amused. She puts her nose in the air, avoiding his gaze, and takes her book back from Blaise.

"You?" Harry asks. "Playing cricket? What, in your whites with all the-"

"So, Blaise, what do you think the third task is going to be?" Hermione asks, interrupting Harry cleanly. Blaise whistles quietly, sprawling against his school bag. His feet (Blaise's boots had been abandoned as soon as he'd discovered the warming charm around the tower's edge) are in Harry's lap, and Harry's hand absently thumbs over the skirt of Blaise's outer robes. Hermione pretends not to notice this, but whether it's for her comfort or Harry and Blaise's, he's not certain.

"I don't know, Granger," Blaise says, looking off into the middle distance. "But whatever it is, I think it's going to be the worst you've faced so far. You and Diggory have been doing just fine, Harry, but that stuff has been designed to kill you, if possible. You two have just been lucky."

"Yeah, well," Harry murmurs, and he stands up, pulling himself to sit on the edge of the tower again. He doesn't know why he likes it so much up here, seeing his feet dangling down, but it's calming, and it doesn't raise as much attention as a solo flight around the castle does. "Unless the third task actually involves me facing Voldemort, I think I'm fine."

"He's not the only person out there who wants you dead, Harry," Blaise points out quietly. His tone is neither sharp nor friendly: it's carefully neutral. Harry wonders how many of these little conversations he's had with his mother.

"He's right," Hermione says, sounding reluctant. "I mean, the stuff with-" she glances at Blaise, and then says, "Well, you know, the stuff with Bagman and the goblins aside... There's Lockhart and his lot. For goodness' sake, Harry, even Rita Skeeter has it out for you!" Harry glances back at Hermione and Blaise, and before he can respond, he winces, letting out a sharp sound of pain. His scar suddenly seems to split open his head, and when he sways on the wall Blaise grabs him by the shoulder, hauling him bodily down to the tower floor.

"What is it?" Blaise demands. Harry just lets out a short groan of pain, trying to blink it away: whenever his eyes flutter closed, the Astronomy Tower fades away, replaced by a dark, flickering room, a grand hall-

"Get Dumbledore," Harry says, his fists clutching tight at Blaise's robes to keep himself from falling down. He feels like a bolt of lightning has hit him in the centre of his head, and he tries to keep his eyes open, but he feels them close shut, feels his body collapse. Harry is paralysed in his own body, unable to move or shift or anything, as he sees his too-white hands raise to the air.


	88. Year Four: The Spider's Web

"Move," he orders, the high, slightly-hissed sound echoing throughout the room. His new jaw is strange, feeling slightly too big for his mouth, but he has examined himself in detail and ensured that he does not look at all ridiculous. Lord Voldemort looks more powerful than he ever has before, and so he should: he will be soon. His servants move swiftly into their positions, ordering themselves in a neat semi-circle around Lord Voldemort's throne, and he reclines slightly within it, keeping his back straight and his posture utterly perfect.

The nail on his index finger clicks quietly upon the arm of the chair in a rhythm until it is the only sound in the great dance hall, barring the near-silent breathing of his servants. Lord Voldemort's Death Eaters stand perfectly inclined to the middle, and only three spaces remain unfilled. Lord Voldemort's new lips do not ever need wetting, but when he presses them together in a thin line, they rub so strangely against each other, too rough and too smooth both at once.

"Antonin," Lord Voldemort says, eyes flitting to the left. "How is Bartemius healing?" He notices some of the Death Eaters are shivering slightly for the cold, but he ignores it entirely; such meager concerns of temperature do not affect Lord Voldemort any more, and it is not his concern if these people cannot recall how to cast upon their own robes a warming charm. The dance hall here in Malfoy Manor is high-ceilinged and wide, and with none of the fires lit, the chill permeates the room.

"Well, my lord," Dolohov says, dipping his head in a respectful bow. They do not wear masks here: the majority of his servants have been in Azkaban so long they barely remember their own faces, let alone each other's, and Lord Voldemort knows he has offered sufficient punishment to those who had walked free without displaying proper loyalty to him - all except two, that is. "He declares himself fit to stand and serve now, though that is not yet true. He begs your audience, my lord, to prove his fealty." Once upon a time, this might have affected Lord Voldemort to smile, or to smirk: now, it does not. He merely notes it with the quietest of satisfactions.

"Bartemius will see me when he can make his way to my feet of his own accord." Lord Voldemort's eyes flit to the right, and he meets Bellatrix's hungry gaze. "And Bellatrix, Thadeus, how fare your plans?"

"Well, my lord," Bellatrix cuts in immediately, before Thadeus Avery can say a word himself. He does his best to school his face into neutrality, but his eyebrows have always been overtly expressive, and Azkaban has not fixed this long-standing issue. Avery's eyebrows are forward on his face, scowling even though his lips don't. "We have taken our research upon the five of them, and we believe they've taken on a cave in the mountains about Hogsmeade! It is enchanted, certainly, to be unseen, and I suspect-"

"I followed Arnett himself, my lord, to the very entrance of their hideout, I'm certain," Avery interrupts, and Bellatrix immediately raises her hackles, but Lord Voldemort raises a flat, white hand in her direction, quietening her down. "I believe they are making use of the Fidelius Charm." Lord Voldemort keeps his blank gaze on Avery's hairy features. After a few more clicks of Voldemort's nail upon the arm of his throne, Avery stumbles through continuing: "We performed a variety of charms in the area, my lord, and we could not find the barest inkling of an entrance."

"They've hidden it! Hidden it, and-"

"Thank you, Bella," Lord Voldemort says lowly, and she stops short, a beam spreading across her features and brightening her dark eyes. She's so excitable, even now, despite her focus on proper sensibilities. Bellatrix is undoubtedly the servant who has changed least in Lord Voldemort's absence, barring the singular, obvious exception.

Lord Voldemort feels the clicking of his finger stop, and he looks down to it, staring. It is his habit to continue the noise throughout meetings, drawing the focus of his servants, but he feels pain in the joint - pain! - and he cannot move it. Curling his scaled lip, Voldemort waves his arm, dismissing his servants without a word, and then-

What is _that_?

* * *

Harry is violently sick in Dumbledore's office, clutching a wooden bin tightly to his belly and letting himself retch and retch. He's trying to force up his Occlumency shields, but he can feel Voldemort right there, as if he's right beside or behind Harry, as if they're sharing the same skull. He'd tried so hard to get some vestige of control, trying to move maybe one finger, and now Voldemort has thrust him back to his own body. Harry can feel it from just outside his skull, putting pressure on him: there's anger, yes, but there's amusement, a sense of power.

Voldemort is laughing at him, and Harry can do nothing about it.

Harry can hear Dumbledore speaking to him, but he just ignores it, closing his eyes tightly and focusing on suspending himself in darkness, forcing himself into the calm that Occlumency brings him. He is floating in blackness, in a cloud of dark fog, and he is alone. There is no one pressing on him, and he is in complete control of his emotions, of his mind, and of his own bloody head. He visualizes the spider's web of Voldemort's presence, and as best as he can, he sweeps the sticking pieces of web from within him, against him.

As soon as the last strand of white silk is gone, so too is the pressure, and Harry breathes in.

He hadn't realized he hadn't been breathing.

"Harry?" Dumbledore says, and Harry looks blearily up at his headmaster through the fogged glass of his spectacles. Blaise and Hermione are stood together. Hermione is clutching the strap of her schoolbag so tightly it looks like it might tear between her fingers, and while Blaise stands composed, Harry realizes he has one hand behind his back - with two fingers and his thumb, he has hold of the back of Hermione's robe, reminding her not to run forwards like she obviously wants to.

"It was Voldemort," Harry says, spitting immediately afterwards, and a glass is pressed into his hand. He rinses his mouth before he drinks, and he mumbles an apology for the bin that Dumbledore completely ignores. He stands, settling himself weakly in the chair in front of Dumbledore's desk, keeping the bin close to him just in case.

"Tell me, Harry." Harry does. Harry talks, and he talks, and as he does he feels his own face, checking that there are no scales on his lips and that his eyebrows are where they ought be, checking that he has a nose and ears and his own, smooth skin. It had been so real, and so complete, and he wants to believe that he is in his own body. Dumbledore is watching him, concerned, and when Harry reaches back to touch Blaise's hand, he meets Hermione's instead: Blaise pushes her to take it.

Hermione's hand is cold and slightly clammy; there is a callous on her index finger and the shiny burn of an old potions scar on the heel of her hand. It isn't like holding Blaise's in the least. Awkwardly, Hermione takes a step forwards, giving Harry's hand a squeeze, but then she releases him. He can't decide whether he's glad about it or not.

"Where's Professor Snape?" Harry asks. He sees the barest flicker of something he doesn't know in Dumbledore's eyes before the older man speaks.

"He's in Diagon Alley this afternoon, Harry," Dumbledore says quietly, pushing another glass of water towards him. "Buying ingredients to restock the NEWT cupboard. Unfortunately, he cannot replenish stock via owl, and he will return late tonight."

"He's going to be in Diagon Alley until late, just for buying some powdered unicorn horn and some moon moss?" Blaise asks sceptically. Dumbledore smiles in a gentle, grandfatherly fashion.

"Although you must never admit to Professor Snape I have told you this, Mr Zabini, he is as inclined to imbibe as any individual might be. He is only your Potionsmaster day to day." Blaise' lip twitches, but he does not laugh, and he silently refuses the offer of a lemon drop from the dish on Dumbledore's desk. "I believe, Mr Potter, you might begin further study of Occlumency." Slowly, Harry looks up to meet Dumbledore's gaze.

"Further, sir?" he queries, tilting his head to the side and forcing his face into blank incomprehension. "I don't know what you mean." Dumbledore's smile widens.

"My mistake, Mr Potter," he says amusedly, like Harry's lies are some private joke between them, and he adds, "I will fashion some kind of schedule, and will offer you tutelage in the art myself, if you should like to take it. I won't pretend to understand the exact bond between yourself and Lord Voldemort, Harry, but it is obviously becoming stronger."

"Yes, sir," Harry agrees reluctantly, and he nods his head. He stands with Blaise and Hermione, and as soon as they're out of Dumbledore's office with the gargoyle closing the entrance behind them, Blaise allows Harry to lean on him to support his weak knees.

* * *

 _ **A/N:** I just wanted to apologize for the recent lack of scene dividers - I've been having some issues with FFnet's Doc Manager, and will be paying closer attention now. With regards to the next few chapters, I'll be bringing in characters who will be great focuses in the next "book" of this series. They aren't named here on FFnet as they are on Ao3, but the years are currently named as  Hatching Snakes, Slytherin's Secrets, The Convict's Cry, and Betting On Blood._

 _The fifth and final "book" will be called The Lernaean Hydra. _


	89. Year Four: Lucius Malfoy

Hogsmeade is busy. Students are rushing back and forth between the different stores, all of which have their doors wide open. For February, it is an uncommonly warm and pleasant day, and for the time being everyone has managed to abandon their scarves and woollen hats. It's nice to walk without the encumberment of heavy coats, and Harry walks alongside Hermione with his hands in his pockets. He'd barely slept the night before, instead focusing on his Occlumency the whole night through, so focused on remaining detached and controlled that he couldn't fall asleep. He just couldn't.

Stalls line the wider streets of Hogsmeade, selling gifts and cards for St. Valentine's Day tomorrow, but Harry ignores them, moving past the earnest salespeople with his shoulders down and his gaze on the ground. Neither he or Hermione have said anything since they walked down to the village together, and now they are quiet.

Likely given instruction from Dumbledore, there are more members of staff than Harry would usually expect lingering around Hogsmeade, on corners or benches, feigning a casually watchful eye, but Harry is too aware of his surroundings to pretend it's normal.

Professor Binns is lingering underneath the sign for Zonko's, and that's not something Harry can pretend is normal.

"That's Tonks," Hermione murmurs, nodding her head in Binns' direction. A man is stood with Binns. He has dark grey stubble and is wearing a deep green coat over plain, blue robes. "I recognize the boots." Harry's eyes flit down, and he sees them - where the robes are blown upwards by a sudden breeze, he sees the patterned leather of the shoes there. "Drom showed them to us in the summer, remember? She told us she was getting them for her, for Christmas."

Harry doesn't remember. Through the black haze around his mind, keeping him suspended in the darkness, he searches for the memory, but he doesn't find it.

"We should pass it on to Moody," he says, and his voice comes out harder than he means it to. "She shouldn't have anything on her that reveals who she is, Metamorphagus or no." He feels Hermione's gaze on the side of his face, quietly concerned, and he ignores it. "Let's go to the Hog's Head."

"The Hog's Head?" Hermione asks. Harry thinks for a second that she's going to argue and insist on the cosy, bright interior of the busy Three Broomsticks instead, but she doesn't. She just walks a little faster, and she turns into the alley toward the pub before he does.

The Hog's Head is not as empty as it usually is. Around a table in the corner of the room are a crew of six or seven wizards still wearing their cloaks, though no one is sat at the bar. When Harry and Hermione step over the threshold, Harry hears the whip of the barman's head towards the two of them before he sees it, and he takes a step forwards, towards the bar. He hesitates, but he's not wearing his Hogwarts robes this morning, and he straightens his back as he looks to the bartender.

"A Butterbeer for her," he says quietly, "And an Irish coffee for me, please." The barman has blue eyes that make Harry think of Dumbledore, but his beard is thick and grey and dirty, and there isn't that much further resemblance. He arches an eyebrow, his lips quirking, but he leans back, flicking his wand to a kettle on the back counter and reaching for a bottle of firewhiskey.

"They'll have two Butterbeers," says an arch voice from the table, and when Lucius Malfoy raises his head, the hood of his cloak falls gracefully away from his sleek, silver hair. "Come here." Harry feels like he should feel panic, or shame, or something, when he looks closely at the table's members. Hadn't he just been thinking of how aware of his surroundings he is? Lucius is sat beside Arthur Weasley, and around the table Harry sees Mad-Eye Moody, Ted Tonks, Kingsley Shacklebolt... Beside him, he hears Hermione let out a quiet exhalation. The bartender smirks even more.

"Come on, Hermione, let's go somewhere else," Harry murmurs.

"Take my seat, Ms Granger," Lucius says, standing up straight. Usually, his general expression towards Hermione is almost a snarl, but he gives her a polite nod, and when the barman hands Hermione her glass, she takes it, taking the invitation.

"Thanks, Mr Malfoy," she murmurs, and Harry sees that he's wearing leather gloves when he gently touches her shoulder to pass her by. Harry wants to linger and listen to the conversation, because it must be to do with the Order, but Lucius' gloved hand comes tightly to Harry's shoulder, and he guides Harry forwards and outside as if he expects Harry to run off at any second. Harry is stiff as he walks outside with Lucius, letting the other man lead him towards the woods.

Harry tries to shrug the older man's grip away, but Lucius holds him tighter, his perfectly-manicured nails digging into the flesh of Harry's shoulder. Only once they're into the woods and ought of sight of the village does Lucius let Harry go. Harry presses his lips together, walking with his hands in his pockets once again and taking a few steps away from him so that they're not so close together.

"Anyone could see you out here," Harry says. "People could be walking this direction and see your face. Vold-"

"Be quiet," Lucius orders, cleanly and crisply, so suddenly and sharply that it makes Harry jump. Harry bites his tongue to keep from snapping something back. Lucius grasps his cane in his left hand, the leather of his glove crinkling around its handle, and the steps of his dragonhide boots are quiet and purposeful on the wet dirt of the path. "If you would allow me the privilege, Harry, I will worry about my own safety. For the time being, explain."

"What?" Harry asks, succinctly.

"Explain. Elucidate. Make clear your state of mind." Harry grits his teeth, pressing his hands further into his pockets. His state of mind is less organized than he would like, and he's continuously aware of the potential influence of that spider's web of Voldemort's. After all, if he had been thrust so completely and entirely into Voldemort's body, couldn't Voldemort possess him in just the same way? "Do you think fourteen is an acceptable age to drink coffee?"

"And here I was thinking it was the whiskey you had a problem with," Harry mutters. He expects Lucius to smack him upside the head, braces himself for it, but it doesn't come. It's something Harry's grown used to in Slytherin over four years - it's not something the other houses seem to engage in, much, the light forms of corporal punishment, but Harry doesn't think it's something new.

"I ought assure you," Lucius says, his voice ringing cleanly in Harry's ears, "that we have been made aware of your... Condition. Your link, that is, with the Dark Lord. Within the Order, that is." Harry glances away, breathing in quietly. "Is this about what you saw?"

"No," Harry says stoutly. "I'm connected to him, somehow, and I can't get away from him. It's sick. You don't know what it's like. "

"Don't I?" Lucius asks coolly, and Harry shoots him a glare.

"I didn't choose this. You did." Lucius' white lips thin, but he doesn't argue, and for the barest second, Harry feels an unpleasant triumph. It fades away like every other feeling he's had in the past day and night, given a moment's pause. "Do you know Occlumency?"

"No," Lucius says quietly. Even when he speaks at the barest volume, the sound seems to ring in the air, completely clear. Harry wonders if Lucius took lessons in elocution when he was a child, or if he just learned it naturally. "It's not a magic I've ever been able to pursue. It is a magic that requires careful training, however. Just as one might struggle and leave oneself too open, one might easily do the opposite and close off oneself entirely."

"Wouldn't you?" Harry asks. "If he- if he just took me over, he could- I could kill-"

"Do you think the Dark Lord fidgets in the dark, Harry, desperately wishing he could come to a school and murder some children? Do you truly believe his ambitions are so elementary?" Harry furrows his brow, and Lucius says sharply, "You aren't important. You mean nothing except that you are a symbol, one that might mean much to the world once you have been struck down. Do you understand that? The Dark Lord doesn't worry about your coming to him, or defeating him. He considers you a plaything, as he considers us all."

"That's not true. I'm not being arrogant, Lucius, but he wants me dead, specifically, and-"

"The list of people the Dark Lord specifically wants dead could fill several books," Lucius says. "The only power he wants from you is that which saved you from the Killing Curse, and that was no skill. It was luck, or blood, or otherwise, but it does not mean you could best him in a duel, does it?"

"I did once," Harry says. "And I was only-"

"You bested Quirrell." Harry furrows his brow, the distinction hitting him hard, and he clenches his fists at his sides. "Are you under the impression, Harry, that all of this will end in some great battle between you and him? Are you truly so arrogant?" He bites the inside of his lip, and he stares forward, stopping short for a few moments. He stands with his feet apart on the ground, his hands in his pockets. When he looks to Lucius, the other man is watching him, silently, seriously.

"Dumbledore said he'd train me in Occlumency," Harry says in barely a whisper. "I'll focus on that. You think I'm stupid?"

"I think you've an inflated sense of your own importance," Lucius says quietly. "It's a complaint Severus often makes of you, but I don't believe he considers the damage it might do you, and the undue worry. The defeat of the Dark Lord, boy, is not your responsibility and yours alone. The world will not shatter because you cease to hold it aloft."

"Lucius-" Harry hesitates, and then he says, "Thanks. I'm guessing this is you trying to be comforting, right?" Lucius arches a silver brow.

"Trying?" he repeats. Harry les out a short, stunted laugh.

"Thanks," Harry repeats, and Lucius reaches out, touching his shoulder. It's a gentle, almost paternal touch, and Harry doesn't pull away this time. "Are you like this with Draco?"

"I needn't assure my son he isn't the centre of the universe, Harry. He knows very well that he is." Harry sniggers quietly, and for the moment he walks back with Lucius towards the village.


	90. Year Four: Lessons Learned

"Were you a son of mine, Harry, I would pour you a glass of firewhiskey and force you to drink the whole thing," Lucius says smoothly as they begin the walk back towards the village. Harry glances up at him, trying not to laugh.

"You're so strange," he says.

"Luckily for you," Lucius continues as if he hadn't heard Harry speak, "Black is your guardian, and you are therefore his concern. Judging by his retained brain power, he began drinking at perhaps twelve."

"So did you," Harry says, and Lucius glances at him, seeming surprised. "You're French, right? Bet you grew up drinking wine with dinner." Lucius laughs. The sound is rich and it rings through the woods around them, bouncing off the trees, but Lucius doesn't argue. He gets a faraway look in his cold eyes, and his lips part as if he's going to share something with Harry, but then he closes his mouth, and he says nothing more.

"I'm not French," he says finally. "I was born in Clapham. And Draco was born at home. My mother was French, Harry, and we simply embrace our heritage in that regard." There's a short pause, and then Lucius says, "I did grow up drinking wine at dinner. But firewhiskey is something else entirely. The wine served to children at my table is watered down and weak - firewhiskey won't only make you drunk, but it will burn. And what want of yours is it to be drunk, boy? You think imbibing will strengthen your mental shields?"

"I wasn't thinking about that," Harry says, and at a cold win, he pulls up the hood of his cloak, so that both he and Lucius are hooded as they walk.

"No, you idiot child, you weren't thinking about anything." There's a soft crack behind them, and Harry and Lucius both freeze at the same time, mid-step, shoulders stiffening. Harry's hand goes to his wand, drawing it from his pocket, and Lucius unlatches something in his cane, drawing his wand forth slowly.

Harry moves instinctively to mirror Lucius' position, standing so that they're back to back and looking outwards at the copse of trees around them. The woods here aren't especially thick or difficult to traverse, simply weaving in between the fields and farms outside of the village proper, and no one could possibly have come out of nowhere. There's nowhere to sneak.

"Who's there?" Lucius calls out, his voice resonant in the quiet copse of trees. There's no response. Harry becomes aware of every single sound around him - the quiet rustle of his robes and Lucius', the soft, wet noise of the path beneath them, the singing of the birds in the distance, and the whispering of the wind through the trees. Harry scans the green around them, and then he stops.

Reaching back, he touches Lucius' lower back, stopping him short. They'd begun to rotate, naturally, but with Harry's hand touching him in silent warning, Lucius goes still. Harry wonders if he should have been a Seeker in his past life, because he sees the barent glint, the barest hint of colour between two bushes, through the leaves there. He sees an obnoxious carnation pink, and it's not from a flower that grows here.

"Stupefy!" Harry casts, swinging his wand forwards, but he's too slow: he sees the robe move, and already he's launching himself towards Chad Arnett. He's a short, compact man, but he has muscle on him, and when he grabs Harry he can't quite pull himself away, unable to twist his arms out of the other man's grip. Harry shifts, kicking as hard as he can in the direction of Arnett's inner thigh; he lets out a sharp sound, and then a pale hand cracks hard against the ginger-stubbled skin and Harry's thrown backwards. He lands on his arse in the dirt, scrambling to get hold of his wand again, but Lucius is already moving with cold, swift movements.

He has Arnett by the hair, holding him tightly in his left hand, and he grasps hold of Arnett's neck. Harry stares, wide-eyed, because he sees the way Lucius positions his gloved hands at the sides of Arnett's jaw, ready to snap the man's neck.

"Lucius!" comes a call from behind Harry, and before Harry can move his wand has been pulled out of his hand and another wand is against his throat. "Let him go." Harry can't look behind him, focused too much on staying completely still with the spell-warm tip of the wand at his neck, but he can see the sudden extra paleness on Lucius' features, the wideness of his cold, grey eyes, the tight grip of his hands on Arnett's neck and Arnett's own, panicked expression. "Now, Lucius, don't you want this nice young man back?" the voice behind him is cold and smooth and soft, and it reminds Harry of a snake's voice. "Let's trade, shall we?"

"Now, now, now," Arnett says, voice quavering. "Now, now, you really don't want-"

"Evan," Lucius murmurs, using an oily, clever voice that he's never aimed at Harry. "It hardly seems a fair trade. You don't really want this pathetic excuse for a wizard, do you?"

"Give him to me." The snake's voice hardens, and Harry sees a muscle in Lucius' jaw twitch, but then he shoves Arnett forwards, and when Harry stumbles towards Lucius, he grasps hold of him as if he's Lucius' own son. Harry catches his wand when it's thrown towards him, and he stares after the man in the silver cloak as he grabs Arnett by the shoulder, dragging him towards the village proper. Lucius pushes Harry back, examining him carefully and looking into his eyes, checking his skin.

"Are you alright?" Lucius asks, very seriously.

"Who did you just give Chad Arnett to?" Harry demands, and Lucius' nostrils flare. "We need to move. Come, now. Back to the Hog's Head, tout suite. Keep your wand to hand, now."

"You sound like a bloody military commander," Harry mutters, shaking off the dirt on the backs of his robes.

"In some ways, I used to be one." Lucius speaks so coldly that it actually makes Harry flinch slightly, and when Lucius says, "Now," Harry hurries up. The two of them walk quickly towards the village, and Harry slips into the back of the Hog's Head. The members of the Order are spread more naturally around the bar now, although Moody is now nowhere to be seen.

"Evan Rosier is here in town," Lucius says sharply, drawing the others up and out of their seats. "He's just taken hold of Chad Arnett: I'm not sure of their particular plans, but Arnett looked terrified."

"Given what he did to Rosier's sister, I'm not surprised," Arthur says, and Harry freezes, glancing between Lucius and Arthur. He hadn't connected it, the name Rosier, but now he remembers Sinistra's tears, remembers Theo telling him about the Rosiers, and it all comes together. It makes him feel sick. "He wasn't wearing his robes or his mask?"

"No," Lucius murmurs. "I don't believe he's here in his capacity as a servant of the Dark Lord. This is a personal revenge, unless-"

"Avery was meant to be looking for them. For Lockhart's people," Harry says. "Thadeus Avery and Bellatrix Lestrange." Hermione grabs her cloak, pulling it on over her robes. Her lips quiver, but her expression is resolute.

"We've got to get the other students inside," she says firmly, obviously doing her best to stop her voice from shaking as she pulls out her wand. Harry sees her lips move, reciting spells to herself, and he nods, moving to stand behind her, and before Lucius, Arthur or Ted can grab hold of them, the two of them rush outside.

* * *

The pleasant, sunny day out in Hogsmeade isn't at all in-tune with the panicked beat of Harry's heart or his heavy breathing, and he splits away from Hermione, letting her go to Binns and Tonks on one of the corners. The castle is too far away to get everyone up to the gates, and although he thinks of the Shrieking Shack, that's equally distant. Honeyduke's, then? He wants to keep the exit secret, but he'd rather get everyone in to somewhere where he can evacuate them back to the castle.

"Hermione!" he calls; she, Tonks and Binns look towards him. "The Honeyduke's basement!" She nods her head, and Harry scans around as Hermione and Tonks each start moving towards different staff members and Aurors dotted around the village. "Cedric! Francis!" The two prefects are stood together, and judging by Francis' completely neutral expression and Cedric's completely guilty one, they'd been discussing him. "Look, Francis, we think something's about to happen near Hogsmeade, with the Death Eaters, so we need to get everyone inside. There's a secret passage in the Honeyduke's basement, a trap door between a few shelves: get everyone into the shop and start funnelling them down towards the castle."

"I'll come with you, Harry," Cedric says as Francis straightens and starts herding the youngest students in towards the sweet shop, explaining hurriedly as he goes to Cho Chang and a fifth year Slytherin called Riggs as he goes. It takes barely a few minutes, and there are only Aurors, Hermione, Cedric and Harry left in the streets; with the past two years, the Hogwarts students and the Hogsmeade residents are all too easy to push inside, and Harry wonders vaguely if there'll be some cap on Hogsmeade visits after this.

"You should go inside, children," Lucius says, coming forwards. It's odd, seeing him and Arthur Weasley stood side-by-side - Harry's heard too many nasty comments from both families about the other, and it's more than slightly bizarre. They're complete opposites, with Lucius' pale hair and pale face, Arthur's dark freckles and bright hair, Arthur's green suit and Lucius' deep-blue robes, with Lucius so built with muscle and Arthur so damned lanky.

"We don't know that anything's actually going to happen," Harry maintains, standing stoutly between Cedric and Hermione. "And-" Behind him, Harry hears a loud thump. He, Cedric and Hermione turn on their heels, and Harry stares at the body in the middle of the Hogsmeade footpath. Deep, wine-red blood soaks thickly into the lacy carnation fabric of Chad Arnett's robes, and he looks like he's been cut on every side with swords or daggers or something. He's utterly still, and silent. Whistling over their heads, Harry sees two black-robed figures flit off on brooms, disappearing into the distance.

"We should get everyone back up to the castle," Cedric says, glancing back to Lucius an Arthur and looking between them. "We should- We should get everyone back up there. But we need to move the body, Mr Weasley, the kids, they can't see this."

"The Aurors will take care of it," Arthur murmurs, and he pats Cedric's back. "Don't worry, Cedric."

* * *

Harry sits in a hallway in the Ministry of Magic. The hallway is cold, and quiet, and mostly empty, and Harry sits alone outside the office of Auror Eleanor Guinan. Harry hadn't expected to be taken aside by Aurors for this, but he'd been escorted into the Ministry, by a few of them, and now he waits before he Floos back to Hogwarts, having received a particular note to Floo back to McGonagall's office once finished. Technically, he's been released to go home now, but he isn't going to, not just yet.

Auror Guinan's office opens, and Lucius steps out, giving the woman behind him a terse nod as he walks down the corridor: Harry stands and walks beside him, and Lucius adjusts his natural long stride to accommodate him.

"Harry," Lucius murmurs.

"Mmm?"

"You are aware, I hope, that it's something of an offence to lie to an investigating Auror?" His tone is not accusative, or sharp, or angry. If anything, it's amused, and teasing.

"Don't know what you mean," Harry says. He thinks of Lucius Malfoy's hands on Chad Arnett's neck, ready to snap it like the fastening on a bottle of champagne. "You were just going to knock him out, right? So you could safely apprehend him." There's a long pause between them as they walk through the corridors - this is part of the reason Harry waited. He had no wish at all to be lost in the winding corridors of the Ministry of Magic, and Lucius knows the place like the back of his hand. "Besides," Harry says finally. "You lied too."

"I believe, young man, that when you first picked up a quill to pen a letter, it triggered the hatching of a most venomous snake." When Lucius glances at him, it's with a fond smile. "I hope you understand how proud I am to know you."

"Don't you also think I'm an idiot?" Harry asks.

"The two feelings can exist simultaneously," Lucius assures him, and he leads Harry into the main hall of the Ministry, where dozens of fireplaces continuously flare green as people come in and go out. Harry lingers for a few moments with his hands in his pockets.

"There were two people," Harry says quietly. "So was it something Voldemort wanted, or was he just killing Arnett because he killed his sister? Evan Rosier?"

"Without wishing to repeat myself," Lucius says delicately, "the two feelings can exist simultaneously. Rosier likely asked for the privilege, but there's a reason they took him elsewhere first. Were he the Secret Keeper of Lockhart's base, they wouldn't have killed him. But even had he not engendered the death of Belle Rosier, they would have killed him merely for being alongside Lockhart. It's an insult to the Dark Lord, that a creator of pageantry like Lockhart might have followers." Harry exhales quietly, and he nods his head, crossing his arms over his chest.

"Lucius," Harry says, "I know you just gave me a lecture about how unimportant and arrogant I am, but-" Lucius chuckles, shaking his head. "No, no, really, Lucius, I'm serious. If I hadn't had my hood up-"

"He didn't know who you were," Lucius confirms. "Had he known who you were, the evening likely would have ended badly for you. The only reason he left me was because he knew he wouldn't have been able to face me in a duel." Lucius reaches out, tapping Harry's temple with the tip of his finger, and then he adds, "If one wants to focus upon the positives, you haven't worried about Occlumency in at least an hour or so, I suppose." Harry laughs.

"Yeah, I guess. Thanks, Lucius. I'll write you this week." Lucius inclines his head, but he doesn't actually leave the room. He keeps his gaze, watchful, on Harry until he's disappeared into the green flare of the Floo.


	91. Year Four: Prophecies and Paragons

Harry sighs, and he wipes his quill over the blotter before setting it aside again. In front of him, open, is a copy of the _Daily Prophet_ , and over its double page spread is an exposé of sorts on Chad Arnett, noting his burial, his lack of next of kin, and so on, as well as going through his crimes in the past year or so. Harry is trying to write an editorial in response to the article, wishing to talk about how Chad Arnett is only a worry on the side rather than the wizarding world's primary focus, but the words just won't come.

He feels powerless, sitting at a lunch table and thinking about the Death Eaters and Lockhart's followers both, and he can't bring himself to touch any of the food in front of him. In his pocket, folded into a small square, is a note from Professor Dumbledore, which had just read, in neat handwriting, "Our first lesson will progress at 7pm this evening."

Harry takes a sip of his pumpkin juice, and the taste makes him feel sick, so he sets it aside again. There's a creak of the great hall doors as the Divination students come down from the tower for lunch, and Harry glances towards the group of them. Ron Weasley looks as pale as a sheet, and Lavender Brown is clutching tightly to Parvati Patil's sleeve on one hand, and holding a Ravenclaw's hand tightly in her other. They're all looking directly at him, and Harry squints at the group of them, seeing a slightly taller figure in deep grey robes behind them.

He feels some of the blood drain out of his face, and he whips his head around to look at the staff table. Snape and Sinistra are already on their feet and coming towards them, and Harry packs up his things, wanting to get out of the great hall as quickly as possible.

"Harry," Ron says, voice quavering. "We were in Divination, and-"

"Yeah, Ron, I've put the pieces together," Harry says quickly, shutting him up. "You, you're a records man from the Ministry. The Unspeakables always send a records man so that they stay anonymous." He's not a very tall man at all now Harry's up close to him, and the other fourth years are nearly up to his height: he has hair the colour of chestnuts, and his eyes are a glassy blue behind the thin, oval rims of his glasses.

"Yes," the man says. His voice is deep, way deeper than Harry would have expected to look at him. "You should come with me, Mr Potter. Professor Snape, sir, you would accompany him, as his Head of House?"

"Yes," Snape says firmly. His expression is neutral, but Sinistra looks wide-eyed, and she shows her worry on her face even if Snape doesn't. "Get out of the way." This is directed at the Divination students lingering around them, and they all blanch, quickly making their ways over to their house tables and settling themselves down. The only one that lingers is Ron, and he reaches out, putting his hand on Harry's shoulder and squeezing, just slightly - it's what Arthur would do, if he were here, Harry is dimly aware. Ron opens his mouth twice, but both times he gives up, and he eventually settles on not saying anything - he just nods his head to Harry, and he makes his way back to the table.

Harry, Snape and the Ministry man step into the entrance hall, and Sinistra, after a murmured word with Snape, walks towards the staircases, obviously on her way to Dumbledore's office.

"It is my duty to inform you, Mr Potter, that you were a named figure in a prophecy made this morning at 11:22 by Professor Sybil Trelawney." The Ministry man is wearing a neat, copper nameplate on his right breast, under the Ministry symbol embroidered there: Dorian Keats. Keats' face is forced into a sort of neutrality, but he isn't anything like Snape - Harry can see that his lips are held too tightly together, that his cheeks are drawn a little too pale, and that he has a few lines in his forehead. He looks scared.

"What other figures were named?" Harry asks. Keats' nostrils flare, and he draws in a tiny breath.

"The Dark Lord was the other figure mentioned, Mr Potter." Keats' blue eyes study Harry's face, and Harry turns his head away slightly, thinking it through. He hadn't really considered taking Divination as a subject last year, choosing Arithmancy, Ancient Runes and Care of Magical Creatures instead, but he'd reread the chapter on Divination in Cecilia's book, _An Introduction To The Wizarding World_. It had noted a generally lax attitude to the magic throughout the wizarding world, but a section had been devoted to the Hall of Prophecies in the Department of Mysteries: only those mentioned in prophecies could pick them up from the shelves and listen to them once they were made, and in the case of immediately mentioned figures, they would be contacted and informed about the process. "It is my duty to ask you if you would like to hear the contents of the prophecy."

"Divination is a murky science," Harry says quietly. "There's no guarantee the prophecy will be fulfilled, whatever it is."

"No, sir," Keats agrees. His face is clinging to its attempt at neutrality, but his voice quavers. Harry looks at Snape, who he finds is already looking at him. Snape's black eyes are impossible to read as he looks at Harry's face, and Harry finds himself wanting to ask the man's opinion, but he knows that Snape won't give him a straight answer, and so he looks back to Keats.

"I want to hear it," Harry says. Keats inclines his head, and Harry shoulders his bag properly, following him and Snape out into the courtyard and down towards the Hogwarts gates to Apparate into London.

* * *

Unspeakables, Harry discovers, do not wear masks.

He doesn't know why he assumed that they did - he'd known for a while that Unspeakables worked anonymously in the Ministry due to the dangerous and confidential nature of a lot of their work, and his mind had simply conjured up the image of an Unspeakable in their deep, purple robes and wearing a mask not that different to those of the Death Eaters, but they don't. As Harry and Snape follow Dorian Keats down the corridors of the Department of Mysteries, which Keats traverses with ease, Unspeakables pass them by, and although Harry looks at their faces, he finds that as soon as they pass by, he forgets the features of them.

"Professor," Harry murmurs quietly, and Snape glances at him.

"It's an enchantment embedded in their robes, Potter," he answers at length, and he says, "Unspeakables have always been anonymous, and have worn similar enchantments since the advent of the Ministry of Magic." Harry nods his head, not saying anything further, and he treks after Snape and Keats. As they move, Harry tries to take not of the corridors he's moving through, but they're complex and weaving, even compared to the somewhat labyrinthine nature of the rest of the Ministry, and he gives up as Keats leads them through a circular room with a dozen doors around its edges.

The hall they enter is high-ceilinged and cavernous, and in every direction span shelves upon shelves of deepest ebony, lit by the candles hovering neatly in the air above them. Upon each shelf, neatly labelled with a bronze plaque beneath it, are numerous globes of various sizes, each made of clouded glass - they vaguely remind Harry of crystal balls, but he knows a devoted Divination student like Lavender Brown would probably lecture him on the differences.

"These are the prophecies, aren't they?" Harry asks, and Keats gives a neat inclination of his head. He gestures for Harry to follow him with a silent inclination of his head, and Harry follows him. Snape, Harry notices, lingers back slightly now - he keeps within a distance to see Harry, but he remains slightly out of earshot. Harry isn't sure whether it makes him glad or nervous. "How did it get here?" Harry asks quietly. "It was only recorded an hour ago, and you were in the castle."

"Prophecies aren't recorded by memory." Keats murmurs. "Magic woven into the globes here will alert Unspeakables that a prophecy has been told, and the magic will catch the prophecy itself, and then someone will be dispatched to collect memories of the incident to verify it. We can note down memories and the words of the prophecy for our own records, but the prophecies here can only be examined by those directly mentioned in them. Here, it's this one."

Keats has pretty, manicured hands that are very pale: he wears light blue polish on his neatly trimmed nails, and on the back of his left hand, a small tattoo of a constellation. It's with his left hand that he points to a globe on the shelf. Underneath, the brassy plaque reads clearly:

 **S.P.T. to L.B.**

 **Dark Lord & Harry Potter**

Harry stares at it, his lips pressed together. Suddenly, a thousand questions are running through his head - why does it just say L.B. when it was in front of the whole class? Why is the cloudy substance within the globe black when the others are various, misty shades of red and green? What will it feel like to touch it? Will Harry hear it through his ears or inside his head? What if he drops it? Will Keats hear it? Would Voldemort be able to pick it up?

Harry reaches out, takes the glassy sphere in his hand, and takes it from the shelf.

Immediately, the Hall of Prophecies seems to fly out from under him, leaving him suspended in blackness, and he clutches tightly at the globe in his hand, looking sharply from one way to the other. He sees, then, a sort of ghost of Professor Trelawney float in the darkness - except she isn't a ghost. She's in full colour, but she's opaque, and when Harry tries to put his hand through her, part of her chest disperses like mist before reconstituting itself. Her voice is hoarse and trembling, and it's weighted with a significance that's completely absent from her usual pageantry.

"The Dark Lord, long thirsty, will sate himself on the deaths of snakes, but here will be his last drink..." As the ghost-Trelawney speaks, her hands shake at her sides, not moving or waving around like they do when she normally talks, and her eyes are glassy and unfocused behind her glasses. Harry wonders what it feels like to go into a trance like that, dimly, but he knows he doesn't ever want to find out. Just looking at Trelawney do it is horrible. "The Boy Who Lived, now Dying, will fall at his hand... And with this snake-speaker's death, so too will the Dark Lord begin his fall... Snakes will flee from the Dark Lord's serpent tongue, and his thirst will never again be slaked... The Boy Who Lived, now Dying, will stopper his thirst..."

The blackness and Trelawney fade away into the same ether, and Harry is left standing still, holding the prophecy orb too tightly in his right hand.

"Did you hear it?" Harry asks softly.

"Not this time," Keats says quietly, in a voice that Harry knows is trying to be comforting, but sounds weak. "But I took down the details of it earlier."

"Can I have a written copy?" Harry asks. Keats inclines his head. He teeters on his feet, glancing around the Hall of Prophecies, and then looking at Harry's face. He looks concerned, even more than before, somehow. "What?"

"If you'd replace that prophecy, Mr Potter..." Keats says quietly, and once Harry has, he follows Keats down another set of shelves. Hands behind his back, expression carefully blank, Snape is already standing there. On a brassy plaque beneath another prophecy reads:

 **S.P.T. to A.P.W.B.D.**

 **Dark Lord & (?) Harry Potter**

Harry stares at it.

"When was this one made?" Harry asks. He's surprised by how quiet his own voice sounds, despite the echo in the hall.

"Some short time before the Dark Lord came upon you and your parents in Godric's Hollow," Snape says. He doesn't say anything else, and his quiet voice seems to ring with significance between the shelves. Harry stares at the plaque, stares at it in utter silence.

"Mr Keats, why wasn't I told about this one before?"

"It was made when you were an infant," Keats answers cleanly. "And when it was initially made, it might not have referred to you specifically. Had no other prophecy been made concerning you in the meantime, you would have been notified of its existence in the Ministry upon your coming of age."

"Sounds great," Harry says dully. "A wizard's watch and a fucking prophecy about me and Voldemort."

"Do you want to-" Harry ignores Keats, reaches out, and grabs the prophecy off the shelf.


	92. Year Four: The Prophet's Prophecies

It is 7pm, and Harry steps over the threshold of Dumbledore's office, the gargoyle grinding closed behind him. Professor Dumbledore is sat at his desk, neatly dipping his quill into a pot of blue ink and writing in his neat, fluid handwriting on a long piece of parchment. As Harry steps forwards, he finishes his signature with a flourish, and after blotting the page, he rolls it neatly and sets it aside. Dumbledore's phoenix, looking bright and new with florid shimmering in its feathers, greets Harry with a cheerful caw, and Harry gives it a nod.

"I don't want a lesson tonight," Harry says. Dumbledore looks at Harry from behind the clear glass of his half-moon spectacles, quietly expectant. He doesn't seem annoyed or angry at what Harry has said, and for some reason, that grates on Harry. He wishes the old man weren't so calm, weren't so accepting. He's wearing a set of deep, flagrantly orange robes decorated with yellow and red flowers, and the outfit is so loud Harry can almost hear it: it doesn't entirely mesh with the old man's calm demeanour.

"Professor Snape informs me that you visited the Hall of Prophecies today, Harry. A prophecy was made about you this morning by Professor Trelawney, was it not?" Dumbledore's voice is quiet and reasonable, calming. Harry doesn't feel like being calm, but nor does he have enough energy left to be angry.

"Professor Dumbledore, I'm really tired," Harry says. He's completely honest as he slumps into the seat across from Dumbledore's desk: "Please don't condescend to me and pretend like you haven't already found out exactly what the prophecy said." Dumbledore's wrinkled lips twitch in the nestled white of his beard, and he leans back in his seat, steepling his ancient fingers together. He looks at Harry with something in between sadness and amusement twinkling in his blue eyes, and Harry meets his gaze without worrying about Legilimency. "You had the prophecy about me told to you, and you didn't say a thing. And don't tell me you were going to tell me tonight, because I know you wouldn't have. I don't know if Keats would have if Snape hadn't already gone to it."

"Did Professor Snape tell you anything of the prophecy, Harry?" Dumbledore asks, not with any specific accusation, but Harry clucks his tongue.

"He just showed it to me while we were in the Hall of Prophecies," Harry says. "Why didn't you tell me?" Dumbledore looks at Harry's face, tilting his head slightly to the side and looking thoughtful. He examines Harry as if he's looking at something on a chess board, and it makes Harry feel like the room has grown a degree or two colder, just for a second. The phoenix steps down from his perch, landing on Harry's shoulder, and Harry is surprised by how light of a weight the bird is as his feathers brush Harry's cheeks. "What's his name again?" Harry asks.

"Fawkes," Dumbledore answers quietly. He's smiling again, now, the analytical look gone, and he folds his hands in his lap, watching Harry carefully before he says, "I didn't tell you, Harry, for a few reasons. I wished for you to feel safe, without the pressure of a prophecy bearing down on you. I didn't wish for you to worry over something that might never truly matter."

"That prophecy is why Voldemort killed my parents, isn't it?" Harry asks. "Born to those who had thrice defied him..." Harry closes his eyes, breathing in, and he thinks of Sirius and Remus. Harry would still have parents if it weren't for the damned prophecy, and they would still have friends, and Harry wouldn't have lived with the Dursleys, and everything, everything would have been different.

"At the time," Dumbledore murmurs, leaning forwards slightly and looking at Harry gravely. "We did not know of the prophecy's focus. There were two young boys born at the end of July, to parents who had three times defied Voldemort. Those were you, and a young boy named Neville Longbottom." Harry's lips part, and he stares at Dumbledore, thinking about Neville, Neville with his plants and his devoted loyalty to his friends, and his inability to cast so much as a spark out of his wand under pressure. "What Voldemort did not know was that when he chose one of these children, he would be imbuing them with the power to defeat him. Lord Voldemort did not hear the prophecy in its entirety - a servant of his listened at the door when it was told to me by Professor Trelawney."

"Who?" Harry demands. Dumbledore unlinks his fingers, spreading his hands and displaying his palms.

"Does it truly matter, Harry? Will it change what has happened?" Harry sighs, leaning back, and Fawkes' beak draws gently over the side of his temple, pecking gently at the base of his hairline. Fawkes' beak is much warmer to the touch than Hedwig's, and he's surprised by the difference in the sensation - Fawkes' beak is smoother, longer, and slightly sharper. "And now that you are in possession of the power that the Dark Lord knows not, only you can defeat him."

"After I'm dead, you mean?" Harry asks pointedly. "The Boy Who Lived, now Dying?"

"Prophecies have been known to contradict themselves, Harry," Dumbledore says, his tone delicate. "And moreover, no time is specified. Even if this prophecy is more true than the first, Harry, it might not come to pass for decades or more."

"Is that better?" Harry asks. "If Voldemort's still walking free, killing people?"

"It is rare, Harry," Dumbledore says in an exceedingly quiet voice, "that any eventuality is entirely positive, or entirely negative. It is up to us, the beholders, to make what we can of what we see, and hold a candle to the shadowed corners."

"It's not a shadowed corner, sir, it's a Seer saying I have to die for Voldemort to die. What sort of fucking candle is going to lighten that up?" Dumbledore's stare becomes so abruptly icy and stern that it actually makes Harry falter. "Sorry, sir," Harry mutters. He shifts back in the seat, dislodging Fawkes slightly and prompting him to hop lightly to Harry's other shoulder, wing curling against the back of Harry's head. "You knew about this. All this time, when- When Quirrell... That's the power you talked about? When I burnt Quirrell?" Dumbledore gives a small nod of his head.

"I shouldn't have liked for you to have learned about these truths in this way, Harry. I would have avoided it, were it possible." Harry leans to the side in his seat, drumming the fingers of his right hand on the arm of the chair. He thinks about the two prophecies, and about the difference between them, and he squares his jaw slightly, tapping his fingers just a little bit harder.

"I'll see you tomorrow," Harry says stiffly, and without saying anything else, he pushes Fawkes off his shoulder and heads out of Dumbledore's office, down the stairs, and towards the base of the Astronomy Tower.

* * *

George nods his head, thoughtfully, and strokes his chin. Fred, who had been drawing a messy, somewhat violent diagram of Harry's plan, is looking down at the page and nodding his own head. "And you're sure this is how you want to approach this?" George asks, glancing over the plan. Harry hesitates, and then he gives a murmured affirmation.

"I think it's the only way I can approach it," Harry says, shoving his hands in his pockets and trying not to pace. He's printed in neat letters on two separate pieces of parchment the two prophecies, and he's compared them side-by-side. One of them is already in amongst the Divination students, and he has no doubt it will be in the Prophet by Friday even without him writing them a letter himself.

"Shame Skeeter's gone missing," Fred mutters. "It'd be great to get her for the job, but I don't think she'll work..."

"Seamus Finnegan," Hermione says quietly from the corner of the room. She's stiff as a board, counting out coins into the Gringotts moneybox, and she doesn't look at any of them as she talks. "Fred, George, if you have it up in the common room... Harry, you said the first prophecy could have referred to Neville, right? Use him. Leave the prophecy, and then get Neville downstairs - Seamus will pick it up. His mum does horoscopes for the Prophet, and she can't stand you, Harry. Seamus is always reading her criticisms of you from her letters in the common room."

"And you guys think it will work?" Harry asks, one last time. George and Fred share a glance, and then they incline their heads together. Hermione stays quiet, and for a long few moments, all Harry hears is the clink of coins dropping into the box in front of her. Then, resolved, she glances up from the box again, and she meets his gaze.

"It will work better than the alternative," she says, her voice slightly steely. "I'll help you draft the letter to the Prophet."

* * *

 _Dear Madam Editor,_

 _I took a long time yesterday trying to put pen to paper, as I knew about the death of Chad Arnett, a follower of Gilderoy Lockhart's. It is my honest belief that Arnett was killed not because he murdered Belle Rosier, but because he was considered to be an enemy of [You-Know-Who], and so he was murdered by Death Eaters. The placement of his corpse in Hogsmeade was a strong statement on their part, and the only reason no Dark Mark was cast was because Arnett wasn't considered important enough to warrant it._

 _But I, Madam Editor, have a strong statement of my own to make._

 _Yesterday morning, Professor Sybil Trelawney, a known Seeress, made a prophecy - since recorded in the Department of Mysteries - and I feel it is my duty to have it published here, in the paper, for all to read it. It predicts me dying, I guess, but that's not the important thing. The important thing for you and for all the readers of the Daily Prophet as they read the contents of this prophecy is that they keep in mind what it means._

 _[You-Know-Who] is relentless and petty. If I've defied him, he'll want me dead, and I have defied him._

 _But I don't matter in the scheme of things. As soon as [You-Know-Who] comes for me, that will be the end of him - just like it was the first time. And in this time of great fear, as people are worried about him and his followers rising again, I just want people to keep that in mind. This prophecy has predicted [You-Know-Who]'s end, and we know it's coming._

 _Yours honestly,_

 _Harry James Potter_

 _ **Editor's note: in the case of You-Know-Who's name being used in its entirety during the process of this letter, we have redacted it.**_

Printed below, in bold, is the prophecy Harry had heard yesterday. Someone in the paper's typography department had chosen to animate all the 'S's to look like snakes, and they shift and move slightly in the early morning light. Harry glances up as Fred and George come down, and they look at him and smile. It's not really something to grin over, so the smiles are small.

"You did it?" Harry asks.

"Seamus took the bait," Fred murmurs, picking up a kipper and setting it on his plate.

"I said to Neville that you weren't going to tell him about it, but that I thought he deserved to know, given that it could have been him in your place." George says before stuffing his mouth with a toasted soldier dipped in egg.

"Pointed out that he wouldn't have been a Slytherin about it, trying to wriggle out of dying," Fred agrees, waggling his eyebrows. "Neville would have been brave."

"He was very understanding about it, actually," George says. He sounds slightly disappointed. "Let's hope your gentle public aren't nearly as kind-hearted." Harry smiles wryly, and he takes a small bite of his breakfast as he listens to the twins tell him the rest of it.

The split between the prophecies is simple. According to the plan, Fred and George had implied to Neville that the second prophecy, whilst having been recorded in the Hall of Prophecies, was something fake - thought up to fool the system by Sirius Black. After all, the man had escaped Azkaban - of course he could think up something like that. And the point of that second prophecy, to say that the death of Harry Potter will cause the death of Voldemort?

 _"Well, it's obvious, isn't it, Neville? They thought it up so that You-Know-Who would change his mind about killing Harry. Oh, the letter to the Prophet tomorrow is going to be all strong words, but You-Know-Who's not stupid. He'll never kill Harry now, he'll just keep him alive..."_

 _"And obviously, Neville, we wouldn't be telling you this if you didn't have a stake in it."_

 _"No, obviously not!"_

 _"It's just that, well, Neville. It could have been you."_

 _"Could have been!"_

 _"And we know you wouldn't be like this."_

 _"So sneaky about it. So... Slytherin. Because the thing is, Neville, killing Harry wouldn't really stop You-Know-Who. No, no, there was a real prophecy made years ago, legitimately - the reason You-Know-Who went for his parents in the first place, when he could have gone for yours."_

 _"Harry's meant to be the only person who can kill Voldemort, you see. This fake prophecy, it gets him off without a worry!"_

 _"And we have the first one. We just thought you deserved to see it, since it could have been you..."_

Harry can hear the imaginary voices of the twins going back and forth in his mind, can see Neville's earnest, nervous expression, can see his horror, can see his forgiveness. This isn't something pleasant to think about at breakfast.

"And Seamus took it," Fred says with a stout nod of his head. "He was heading out to the Owlery as we came down the stairs." Fred's expression isn't joking any more: it's serious, and grave. George's expression is equally devoid of any good humour.

"Harry," George says quietly. "The point of this... It's so he'll still come and kill you, isn't it? It's like an invitation - a failed attempt to put him off the job, by acting like this new prophecy is fake, and he'll come and kill you."

"And what if it's bollocks?" Fred demands. "He'll kill you for no reason. What's that worth?"

"He would have tried to kill me anyway," Harry says quietly. "Where's Hermione?" Fred and George exchange a look.

"She's not coming down. Staying in bed, so she told Lav Brown."

"She has a bit of a problem with this suicide by bastard thing," Fred mutters.

"Ditto," he and George say at the same time. "This isn't the Triwizard Tournament, Harry. This is getting Voldemort and waving a red flag in front of his face." Harry wonders, vaguely, whether the tournament actually has to kill him - will Ludo Bagman still win his money if Voldemort kills him instead of a dragon or something? Does it still count?

"Speaking of the Triwizard Tournament," he says, "me and Cedric are scheduled to train together today. See you later." As he leaves the great hall, Seamus Finnegan is just entering, and he shoots Harry the dirtiest look Harry's ever seen. There's nothing worse to a Gryffindor, after all, than a coward.


	93. Year Four: Cedric's Brain

Whispers follow Harry through the halls as he makes his way up to the entrance hall of the castle. They're from every house, even from the other Slytherins, but Harry ignores them, keeping his head high and his hands in his pockets as he walks out into the courtyard and, after that, down the grassy knoll and towards the lake.

At the edge of the lake, Harry can see the empty ship from Durmstrang, its black, tattered sales completely unstirred. He sees Cedric standing by the water's edge, having left footprints in the sandy dirt of the lake's soft beach. Cedric has a copy of the Daily Prophet in his hands, and he stares down at it.

It's beginning to get warmer, now, and the heat in the air isn't ruined by any kind of breeze: there's barely any wind at all, and the water makes the quietest whisper as it washes up onto the beach. Looking over the lake, Harry looks through the dark spaces in between the trees on the other side of the water, and he frowns slightly.

"Cedric," Harry says. "Are they-"

"Webs," Cedric agrees, nodding his head once. He has a frown pulling at his handsome features, and when he looks to Harry, his expression is one of concern. "Cho and I went for a walk the other day: I wanted to show her the unicorns; she never took Care of Magical Creatures. The Acromantula are right here, at the edge of the forest. I dropped her up with Madam Pomfrey before I came down here for training."

"Is she okay?" Harry asks immediately, and Cedric nods his head.

"She's fine. Scraped her leg badly as we came out of the woods, but she gave as good as she got - we killed maybe a half dozen between us. I know that-" Cedric hesitates a moment, and then says, in a half-murmur, "I know how Hagrid feels about them, but we had to. They would have killed us."

"I know," Harry says. "I don't think anyone will blame you." Harry reaches out tentatively, touching Cedric's arm a second, and then he drops his satchel on the ground near a sandy rock. He glances to the paper in Cedric's hand, and he reads the headline.

 **BOY-WHO-LIVED PUBLISHES FAKE PROPHECY**

 **Harry Potter, Hogwarts Champion, Tries To Shrug Off You-Know-Who**

"And about the paper..." Harry murmurs, but Cedric interrupts him.

"I heard the Patils talking about it with Cho," Cedric says quietly. "I heard what they said, Harry, I know it wasn't fake - no one can fake a prophecy like that. But if he- if- if Voldemort... If he thinks the second one is fake, he'll stick with what the first one said, won't he? He'll try to kill you, and if he kills you, people can defeat him. That's the plan, right?"

"So much for Hufflepuffs being stupid," Harry mutters. Cedric laughs, the sound tumbling out of his mouth, and he grabs Harry hard by the shoulder and pulls him into a rough hug; he ruffles Harry hard, grips him tightly, and then he lets him go.

"So much for Slytherins being cowards," Cedric murmurs back. He crouches down, picking up a flat stone from the beach, and he flicks his wrist as he throws it: it skips once, twice, three times across the water, going out almost twenty feet, and then a tentacle shoots fast from the lake's calm surface. The stone flies high into the air, hitting Hagrid's hut up the hill with a clatter on the wooden roof, and Harry tries not to laugh at Cedric's distraught expression. "Are you really okay with that?" Cedric asks as the squid comes up to the lake's surface, dancing just visibly in the water and basking in the sun. "If he kills you- that's just a chance someone else can kill him. It's no guarantee of anything."

Harry puts his hands in his pockets, looking away this time.

Cedric holds up the paper, scanning it and looking for some phrase or other. Harry knows that it isn't actually Rita Skeeter, as there's a Missing Persons report all over the back page of the Prophet, but it's obviously someone trying to mimic her style.

 _"Obviously worried about You-Know-Who's consideration of the first prophecy, Harry Potter has attempted to sell the world an updated, fake prediction. So much for painting himself as a hero: this little boy is willing to do anything, sacrifice anyone, so long as he can stay alive himself."_

After reading the passage aloud, Cedric holds up the paper, and he doesn't even say an incantation, just flicking his wand at the base corner of it and setting it alight. The greying ashes of the pages float out onto the water, but the squid doesn't bother to brush those away like it had the stone.

"My dad's been talking about it," Cedric says, holding his wand in his hand and twirling it slightly. "About the war - he's been talking about me going somewhere else if it starts up again, you know. He wants me to go get a job in America, or Australia, maybe. Says he'll get someone to set me up in the Ministry. He was furious when I told him I wouldn't go." Cedric turns his head, looking over at the boathouse at the base of the castle, and then he turns back to the water in front of him, murmuring a spell and Conjuring panels that come together on the water in front of them.

Harry watches, interested, as Cedric conjures up a wooden platform that floats on the water, and two chairs on top of it. Harry grabs his bag before stepping onto it with Cedric, and he settles on the chair across from him, hovering for a moment as he tries to think of something. He knows that he can't Conjure things as easily as Cedric, but he takes two sheets of parchment from his bag, and he concentrates hard as he taps on each of them.

The cushions are thin, and they're the same pale beige as the parchment they've been transfigured out of, but it's better than sitting on the hard wood: Cedric grins at him as he takes the cushion and slides it onto the chair beneath him.

"Why won't you go?" Harry asks, and as the platform floats slowly out towards the middle of the lake, Cedric sighs, shaking his head. "You could be killed, Cedric. Everyone who can should get as far away from here as they can."

"That's why I have to stay," Cedric says. "I don't-" He breathes in, clenching his fist and looking down at the water. He reaches forwards, holding his palm barely a few inches above the surface of the water, and the squid pushes one tentacle from the water, brushing the tips of Cedric's fingers. "I'm like you, Harry. You're basically going out of your way to make sure Voldemort's still willing to kill you, right, because of what the second prophecy means? You're ready to stand and fight, because it's your duty - because you know what you can do."

"You want to protect people," Harry says quietly, and he leans back against the back of his chair. He doesn't reach out to touch the squid, but he watches it as it moves gracefully in the water, dancing under the surface. "Like a real fierce badger, I guess." Cedric laughs, sitting back a bit. "I've never met your dad. I know Lucius hates him." Cedric snorts.

"Yeah, Dad is- He's very passionate. He's passionate, and he's angry. And for him, a lot of the time, they're the same - it drives Mum mad, 'cause he always gets into fights at work." Cedric taps his foot on the wood underneath him, and with his wand he works absently, laying flowers around the edges of the platform, flowers and vines and the smallest carpet of grass Harry has ever seen: Cedric does it as naturally as breathing. "He couldn't fight in the war, you know. He gets an anxious shake in his hand, and he just couldn't do anything on a battlefield, not with people. When he got his job at the Ministry, he was fighting Dugbogs, giants, trolls, pixies, everything. He could fight a dragon and not worry about it, but he couldn't stand to duel a real person, even if they were a Death Eater, you know?"

Harry looks at Cedric as he speaks, examining his features and the look on his face; Cedric looks quietly pensive in a way Harry's never seen him before. He's never really thought of Cedric's parents all that much, or what they might want Cedric to do after school is done with.

"What about the Triwizard Tournament?" Harry asks quietly. "They wanted you to do this, right?"

"This is a competition," Cedric says. "No Death Eaters who might want me dead." Harry hesitates. He thinks about Ludo Bagman, and the goblins, and the bet. "If it comes to it, Harry, I want you to know that I'll fight by your side. I know that you're young, but you're doing as well as any of us in this competition. And I'd trust you with my life."

"I'd trust you with mine," Harry says honestly. At a flare of movement from the edge of the woods, Harry turns his head, and he stares, his mouth dropping open.

"Merlin's beard," Cedric whispers. It's only about ten in the morning, and bright light filters down from between a few white, fluffy clouds, shining on the surface of the lake and glittering in the dew on the cobwebs at the very edge of the forest. It reflects off the many eyes of the first Acromantula to walk out of the forest and into the open.

They move, initially, in a comical single file, one man-sized spider followed by another, and then another, until dozens of them are moving in a neat, orderly fashion, and much smaller spiders nestle around the legs and underneath the bodies of the biggest spiders as they move. Harry can hear their voices chittering and echoing over the surface of the water, calling for release, and Harry narrows his eyes. The spiders, hundreds of them, gather on the grassy hill, until instead of it being green, it's black and brown with their hairy bodies, and shining with their eyes.

Harry thinks of Hagrid's dead roosters, and he thinks of the deadly fear that spiders have of the mighty beast, the Basilisk.

* * *

Harry and Cedric are forced to stay out on the lake as one Acromantula, bigger than all the rest, steps forwards to talk with a contingent from the castle. Harry recognizes Dumbledore, Maxime and Karkaroff, members of the Hogwarts staff, members of the Board of Governors (Lucius is conspicuous with his brightly blond hair), and Cedric's father.

There are thousands of spiders by the time the full group is there and speaking with the Acromantula; they can't hear what they're actually saying, and they're so far away that Harry can't even glean something from their expressions, or the way they hold themselves. He can see when Amos Diggory paces one way and then the other, but that's all.

It takes perhaps an hour or two, long enough that every window of the castle is wide open with students and staff pressed up against the gap and looking outside, and he can see a few of the Gryffindors sitting on the roof of the entrance hall in a neat row. He sees that two of them have bright, red hair.

Harry knows that it's over when the gates of Hogwarts come open on the other side of the grounds, and the spiders begin to move as one great, dark wave, stepping over the dark ground of the path and towards the gate. No one goes too closely to them, and there are hundreds and hundreds of them, thousands, even. They move fast, and they just keep coming out of the forest, more and more and more of them.

Harry stares after them as they go, and when the last few spiders dribble from the forest's edge, they all follow after each other and out towards the gates. The giant squid, gently and with a surprising delicacy for its size, guides the platform they've been sitting on back towards the beach, and Cedric and Harry step off in unison. The group of people outside move down the grassy bank, and as soon as Lucius sets eyes on him Harry braces himself.

Lucius grabs him hard by the shoulders, looking into his eyes and his mouth and his ears, holding the sides of his face to examine him as if he'll be able to see some evidence of Harry being injured or ill. If this hadn't happened to Harry before, or if he hadn't seen Lucius perform similar treatment on Draco, Harry might have laughed at the ridiculousness of it. When Lucius lets Harry go, Snape steps forwards, and his examination of Harry is cursory: he looks Harry up and down, and then gives the slightest inclination of his head when Lucius looks at him for some answer or other.

Harry's never going to stop being weirded out by the two of them.

Amos is hugging Cedric tightly, speaking to him with quick, hurried words, and Cedric nods several times, patting his father's back and holding him tightly - Cedric is taller than Amos by almost a head.

"What the Hell were you boys doing out there?" McGonagall demands, and Harry shrugs his shoulders slightly. Up at the castle, Harry can see children gathering in the courtyard, looking down at them from up the hill.

"We were talking about the Tournament," Cedric says, shrugging his shoulders slightly. "We decided to go out on the lake - we thought it best to stay there once we saw the Acromantula coming out. Me and Cho already faced some of them this morning."

"What happened?" Harry asks, and suddenly the mix of teachers and Ministry people go awkwardly silent. He looks between them, examining each of their faces, and Lucius breathes in.

"The Acromantula have fled the forest. They've gone into the mountains: with so many of them, we could no more stop them than we might wish to stop the flow of the sea," Lucius says quietly, curling his lip with obvious distaste. "No doubt they will have to be dealt with by the Ministry at some later time."

As the two of them are hurried up towards the castle, Harry thinks about the Basilisk, and then he thinks about Gilderoy Lockhart and his people, hiding out in the mountains. He wonders, vaguely, if the Fidelius Charm has any effect on Acromantula, and he walks with Cedric into the castle proper.


	94. Year Four: The Basilisk Bolder

"Mr Diggory," Harry says quietly. He'd been talking with Dumbledore, McGonagall and Hagrid for a little while, talking to them about the spiders and how long they had been in the forest - Hagrid, who had been fidgeting guiltily throughout the entire conversation, had moved off quickly as soon as he was released from the conversation, but Harry knows Amos Diggory doesn't know the man that well, and he doesn't suspect he's put together that Hagrid was likely somehow responsible for them.

"Yes, yes, you're- oh, Harry Potter! Yes, yes, hello," Diggory says, voice a little stiff. "Yes, hello." Harry knows immediately that he'd read the Daily Prophet over his breakfast, his stiff expression obviously reveals. "Don't suppose you're here hoping I know some way to get you out of the competition?"

"No, I think me and Cedric will do fine winning," Harry says. Diggory scowls slightly. "I just wanted to ask, you know, if you wanted any more details about why the spiders fled." Diggory stares at him, eyes searching Harry's face from behind the thin glass of his spectacles, his ruddy face showing all the signs of complete confusion.

"Fled?" Diggory repeats, twisting his mouth. "Potter, the only thing they're fleeing is the environment. They're too big a colony for the Forbidden Forest, and they demanded the right to leave via the gate." Harry stares at him.

"Mr Diggory," Harry says very quietly, "what has the school mentioned to you about the things on the forest? The new things?"

"New things?" Diggory repeats, drawing out the G sound.

"The Basilisk?" Harry says simply, and Diggory stares at him, and then he scoffs.

"Very funny," he says dryly, and he turns to stalk off in the opposite direction, leaving Harry watching after him.

* * *

"Hi, Harry," Cho says as they meet on the stairs, and he gives her an awkward smile. Her robe is ripped on the left side, and white bandages are clinging to the leg on that side, neatly tied off in Madam Pomfrey's professional manner. Harry winces in sympathy, and she says, "It barely caught me, you know, but the venom... Madam Pomfrey's put in a topical antidote for it, so I just need to keep the bandage on until tonight. Cedric carried me into the castle - I felt like a real damsel." Harry laughs, and he passes her by on the stairs, heading up the stairs to the Gryffindor tower.

Harry keeps walking up the stairs, shifting the position of the library book in his hands, and when he gets to the portrait of the Fat Lady, she looks down at him with an expression of mixed affection and ire, one of her hands going to her hips.

"So, what's your name?" Harry asks, on a whim, and with an indignant gasp of horror, the portrait swings open without her so much as asking him for the password. Harry steps over the threshold, letting the Fat Lady draw shut behind him, and he scans the Gryffindor common room's ridiculously bright hangings and furniture for Hermione or the twins.

"You shouldn't be here," says a low, dark voice from the fireplace, and Harry meets the gaze of Seamus Finnegan. His lips are curled into a slight scowl as he glares at Harry, and folded across his lap is that morning's edition of the Prophet, this one, thankfully, without any mention of Harry on the headline, but instead focusing on the Acromantula.

"Don't worry about me, Seamus," Harry says dryly. "You just tell your mummy all about me, and she'll make it all alright." Finnegan stands, clenching his hands into fists at his sides, but a stout form steps between the two of them, and George pushes Harry by the shoulders towards the stairs.

"Come on," he says, sounding amused. "Hermione's already upstairs with us."

"Oh, good," Harry mutters. "It can be a foursome."

Hermione is sat cross-legged on Fred's bed, facing him but looking down at her lap. Furiously, she loops wool over the needles in her hands, and Harry can see the square of knitted yarn she has settled in her lap, soon to be one of the first of the Weasleys' magical hats. Fred is sprawled back against the footboard, and curled up with his great weight on Fred's broad chest is Crookshanks, purring like the engine in Uncle Dursley's car.

The Gryffindor dormitory is round with windows about the outside, and stationed between some of the windows are three huge, four-poster beds curtained in bright, bright scarlet. The beds of Fred and George are on the right of the door, and to the left is the one that Harry guesses belongs to Lee Jordan. It seems like the place is missing two beds, and set up where they would be is a big, square table with three chairs around it, books and papers scattered haphazardly across the surface. Except for the trunks at the ends of their beds and an end table for each boy, though, there's no other furniture, though in the centre of the room there's a round, red rug that seems to be glued down to the boards.

"I still don't understand why you don't have wardrobes," Harry mutters. "Or a chest of drawers, or something. It's a wonder you people take so long to pack up for the summer when you have to keep all of your stuff in your trunks." George sniggers, stepping inside and dropping on his back onto his bed, letting his legs hang loosely from the side, and Harry drops the book heavily onto his chest, stepping back and grabbing a chair from the table, settling himself between the two beds. George sits up, letting the book fall open at the page Harry had marked, and he scans the page, his lips twisted into a small frown. "I asked Amos Diggory what they were going to do about the Basilisk."

"And?" Hermione asks. For a moment, the needles freeze in her hands, and when she looks at Harry, he shakes his head slightly. She spits out a short curse, and drops the needles aside, clenching her fists and putting them in her lap. "He's such an idiot. All of these people are such idiots. People are going to get killed!" Her voice raises in pitch and volume at the end of the word, edging on hysteria, and then she breathes in, forcing herself to calm down a little. "What do we do now? The Basilisk- How are we meant to kill it?"

"It says that the cry of a rooster can kill a Basilisk," George says, looking down at the page. "But I bet stabbing it would work as well."

"It so often does," Fred agrees wisely, watching the movement of the tome as George passes it over to Hermione, and she traces the page with her finger as she looks through it.

"It says they can kill with just a look," Hermione says quietly, tapping the page with a fingernail. "At least we don't have to worry about that."

"Yeah, it's just Snape doing that around here for now," Fred agrees, scrunching up his nose as Crookshanks licks him across the chin. "You want to go through a plan, Harry?" When Fred looks at him, it's with complete and utter seriousness, and Harry gives a small nod of his head.

"If the Ministry won't think about it, I think we need to. And-" Harry frowns slightly, tapping his fingers on his leg. "It's becoming bolder. I think that's why the spiders left." Hermione gives a nod of his head, and reaches for a piece of parchment, ready to take notes, and the four of them lean in together to talk it through.

* * *

 **A/N: So, in celebration of nearly hitting 1000 followers on , and 200 on Ao3, I thought it would be nice to open up to requests! So, yeah, if you have any requests for ficlets, interludes or even longer oneshots within the TSG universe, please comment them below or drop me a private message! Thank you ever so much, guys!**

 **Please note that any requests that are explicit in nature will be posted, if filled, only on Ao3, pursuant to FFnet's regulations.**


	95. Year Four: The Champions Unmade

"You think you're ready?" Cedric asks the question quietly and almost delicately as he and Harry walk up towards the entrance hall together, having met near the entrance to the kitchens on the way up for breakfast. There are only three more days until the Third Task, as time has gone past so quickly, day after day, week after week. The sun is bright outside now, and the days are actually becoming truly warm and pleasant: all Harry can think about, ridiculously, is that he won't have to do any exams this year. Whether he and Cedric win, or whether they lose, both he and Cedric are getting an automatic waiver, an automatic pass.

"As ready as I will be," Harry says. They've not made any change to the arena outside, not added anything or taken anything way from the big colosseum, and yet it feels like there's more electricity of sorts added to the air whenever he goes outside and looks at it. Although he never sees anyone flitting around it, he feels like there's some change or other in it, ones that he cannot see, as if magic is being layered about the colosseum overnight for the Third Task. "What about you?"

"I feel sort of the same," Cedric says quietly, and he says, "I've been talking to Fleur a little bit. She's- Well, worried is kind of the wrong word, because I don't think she ever worries about anything, but... She seems to be kind of concerned. About- About the Death Eaters." Harry puts his hands in his pockets, frowning slightly and turning to glance at him.

"Death Eaters?" Harry repeats, tilting his head slightly quizzically and staring at Cedric for a few long moments. The past few weeks, there's been all but silence in the papers where the Death Eaters are concerned - all but silence where everything is concerned. Every single article printed has been lacking in the Prophet's usual sensationalism, and they haven't mentioned anything about Voldemort, Gilderoy Lockhart, or even Rita Seeketer. There have been a few criticisms of the Ministry's response to the Acromantula (or lack thereof), but to Harry's awareness, no one in Hogsmeade has been bothered by them yet.

"She says her grandmother sent her a letter. She has the Sight, apparently, and she says they're coming soon. She thinks it will be during the Third Task."

"The Veela grandmother?"

"No, the other one." Cedric seems uncomfortable with having brought up something to do with Divination, as he keeps shooting Harry sidelong glances and looking mildly guilty, but Harry is glad Cedric told him. "I think you should talk to her."

"Me?" Harry says, head snapping to the side. "Why me?"

"She likes you," Cedric says. He taps his fingers on his leg for a moment, and then he stops short: Harry stops with him, a corridor away from the entrance hall, and Cedric faces him properly, putting his hands on Harry's shoulders and examining him seriously. Harry looks up into the other boy's face, and Cedric seems to hesitate somewhat before he speaks quietly and gravely, and says, "I know that- I know that a lot of people tell you what to do, Harry. So many people do, and with You-Know-Who coming back, it's only going to get worse, but... Harry, you're a really good person, okay? And a lot of people trust you, not because you're the Boy-Who-Lived, but because you're a good person. Harry, because you're genuine and you're brave, and Harry, Fleur trusts you. I think that if you talk to her, she'll open up to you, and I think that you should talk to her. Not that you have to, of course, but- it's my advice that you do."

Cedric pulls his hands back from Harry's shoulders, looking almost embarrassed for a few moments, and then he leans back.

"I'll talk to her," Harry says.

"I don't want to tell you what to do," Cedric murmurs, and Harry shakes his head.

"You're not, Cedric. Thanks, for telling me that, for- for caring enough to give me advice." Cedric gives Harry a firm nod, and he walks off and towards the great hall. Harry is lacking in any appetite at all, and he lets the other boy go, waiting for a few moments in the entrance hall. He'd put on his robes and walked up for breakfast out of pure habit, and now the idea of even biting into a piece of toast is making his stomach turn.

"Come on, Potter," says a light and amused voice, and Blaise walks out of the great hall easily and with a natural grace, morning light shining on his cheekbones. "Let's go for a walk." Relief surges through Harry, and he grins at the other boy, giving an inclination of his head and walking alongside Blaise out into the courtyard and then down the hill. They synchronize their steps as they move down over the grass, not a drop of dew clinging to the blades and with daisies and buttercups sprouting about between the green shoots.

"I didn't want to go in for breakfast," Harry says quietly, and Blaise gives a slow, easy nod of his head. Rather than walking with Harry down towards the lake and the entrance to the Forbidden Forest, Blaise turns the two of them down towards the path to the Hogwarts gates, where a few trees dot either side of the gravel road, and near to the gates themselves is a private little copse of trees.

"It's alright," Blaise replies, giving a shrug of his shoulders. He and Harry walk in the very middle of the road, tracing the path taken by the coaches when they're brought up towards Hogwarts, and Harry leans slightly towards the other boy. Blaise glances at him, glances back towards the castle, and then he steps slightly away from Harry: despite the pleasant heat on the summer breeze, Harry feels abruptly cold. "Are you worried about the Third Task? I wouldn't be, were I you."

"Wouldn't you?" Harry asks, and Blaise gives the neatest nod of his aristocratic head.

"I feel that the two of you, you and Cedric, will come out of this as victors." Harry glances to Blaise, and he wonders why all of a sudden everyone is having feelings and impressions as to the future. If it had been one person, he might have accepted it, but like this it feels insincere, like everyone's so sure he's going to die they have nothing better to do than lie to him about it.

"Right," Harry says, a little bluntly. "If you say so." As they step under the umbrella of the trees in the little copse, Harry looks about; they enter a clearing with colourful flowers and mushrooms carpeting the ground, and Harry vaguely wonders why he hasn't seen this part of the grounds before. Blaise steps forwards and into the centre of the clearing, and then he looks back to Harry and gives a small, neat smile. "Did you want to talk about something?"

"No, not at all," Blaise replies, reaching out and taking old of Harry's robe front, drawing him closer and closer, until their noses nearly brush together, and Blaise is looking right through the lenses of Harry's glasses and into his eyes. "I merely wanted you." Blaise leans in to kiss Harry, and although Harry feels the warmth of Blaise's lips brush his, he doesn't kiss the other boy back. Blaise pulls back from Harry, an expression of utter puzzlement on his face, and Harry examines his features in quiet silence.

He thinks of how Blaise had looked back towards the castle when Harry had tried to lean against him, and how Blaise will show him affection only in front of Hermione, and in front of no one else. Blaise is tilting his head just slightly to the side, his hands fisted still in the front of Harry's robe, and Harry reaches up, pulling his hands gently away.

"What is it, pray?" Blaise queries, amusement replacing his puzzlement. "Surely you aren't so scared you're lacking in all libido?"

"I don't think this is a good idea," Harry says quietly. "Any of this. I'm going up to the castle." Blaise is staring at him, his mouth slightly open, his perfectly molded features for once betraying a complete expression: horror, befuddlement, anger...

"You cannot possibly mean-"

"I don't want to be like Elton John," Harry blurts out, and is surprised by the tension in his own voice, and the way his voice shakes.

"Who in Merlin's name is that?" Blaise demands, voice slightly high and sharp with anger. Harry opens his mouth and then closes it, unsure how to explain it, how to define himself immediately, and he decides not to. He staggers backwards, just slightly, and he hears Blaise say something but he doesn't really register what the words are: he turns on his heel, and as fast as he can he walks briskly up towards Hogwarts again. He doesn't want to turn into the castle, not right now, and not when Blaise might follow him, so he heads the other way, and when he approaches the Beauxbatons carriage parked in its place, he walks up toward its fine, wooden door and knocks upon the white-painted surface. He lingers on the pretty, brass steps, and when one of the great, black horses comes towards him, he stays completely still, letting it nudge him in the shoulder. He reaches out, delicately drawing the pads of his fingers over its wide, dark muzzle.

"He likes you," comes the voice of Coralie, and when Harry turns to meet her gaze, the horse snorts, blowing warm air against the side of Harry's neck and ruffling his hair. Coralie is dressed in a set of Muggle clothes, a loose, beige jumper worn over a pair of tight, tartan shorts, and over top of the ensemble she wears the outer piece of her Beauxbatons robe - somehow, the combination comes across as artful rather than ridiculous. "That is rare - he barely likes anybody. Come inside, Harry," Coralie steps back into the carriage, and then she neatly pushes the door closed. The carriage is huge as a castle on the inside, and before him Harry sees a great, marble staircase leading up into what would be the ceiling, and on each side of it are doors leading off into other corridors. "This way," Coralie murmurs, her accent thickly weighting down the words, and she leads Harry to the right and through to a brightly lit, classically decorated dining room.

Seated at a desk with a French magazine on the surface before her, with her left hand held out so she can wandlessly affect her nails to be painted a robin's egg blue, Fleur Delacour sits alone, her eyes flitting easily over the page. "This young man is here to see you, Fleur," Coralie says sweetly, and when Fleur turns to glance at him, Harry breathes in the slight cloud of her perfume on the air.

"Harry," she says softly, and then she smiles, softly. "You look sad." Harry thinks about Blaise in the copse down by the Hogwarts gate, alone in the midst of all those flowers. Coralie taps Harry on the shoulder in a friendly fashion, and then she walks away, her feet making barely any sound on the varnished boards of the dining room beneath her.

"Just a bit of drama," Harry says, shrugging his shoulders, and from the big dining table in the middle of the room, he takes a chair and sits down on it beside Fleur's desk, and she smiles at him, her face utterly radiant. "Cedric told me what your grandmother said." Fleur breathes in, her nostrils flaring slightly, and she neatly closes the glossy, animated magazine and pushes it neatly aside: on the cover, a wizard and witch in the most fashionable dress robes spin in an enchanted waltz.

"She did not tell a Prophecy like your lady here," Fleur murmurs, dropping the aspirates and taking up her drink from the side, taking a sip. "But she has visions, sometimes, of things... She saw their masks and their robes, Harry. She wrote me saying I ought be very careful in the Task - of course, I had to alert you three also."

"Are you scared?" Harry asks, and Fleur tilts her head to the side, examining Harry curiously.

"You know, Harry," Fleur says, her glossed lips twitching."It has been a very long time since anyone has thought to ask me that." The little brush drawing itself over her nails dusts itself off and settles in the bottle, and with a wave of her wand, she dries off the varnish on the painted nails, and then she stands, neatly. She looks like the kind of debutante Petunia would hold back her tuts for on the television. "Come: take some hot chocolate with me, and let us talk about it. You remind me of my sister, you know, Harry."

"But I'm prettier, right?" Fleur laughs, putting back her head, and when she looks at Harry and grins once more, she shows all of her lovely teeth.

"No, not so much. But she is eight, so you are about the same age." Harry snorts, and with her leading the way, he follows her into the kitchen.


	96. Year Four: Listening To The French

Harry watches as Fleur moves through the kitchen with a natural grace, surprised by how proper and in-place she looks there: he has never imagined something so homely as the kitchen being Fleur Delacour's domain, but she seems as at home here as she does anywhere else. Harry wonders if there's anywhere where she looks a fish out of water, and decides that there probably isn't. Fleur flicks on the stove with a wave of her wand, setting a pot on the burning ring and pouring milk into it, then setting within it squares of chocolate taken from a jar on the shelf.

The kitchen is large, high-ceilinged and with a lot of space between the counters, and when Fleur gestures for him to sit on a stool set at the counter, Harry does.

"I didn't know you cooked," Harry says, and Fleur laughs again, the sound ringing through the room.

"This is not cooking, Harry. But yes - everyone at Beauxbatons does." She takes a wooden spoon from a very expensive looking vase, where it is arranged with spatulas and other cooking implements, and she stirs the mixture within the pot. Within a few more moments, the scent of chocolate is thick on the air, and Harry can't help but breathe it in and relax under it. "We do not have House Elves to serve us," Fleur says, seeming amused at the very thought. "There are some caretakers to assist us, but cooking for ourselves, cleaning for ourselves - these are parts of our duties. We learn by doing. It's very important to do one's own chores, no?"

"Yeah," Harry agrees, giving a small nod of his head in agreement. "Yeah, it is. They don't teach us that here, at least, not in classes. We got given books of cleaning charms in our first year of Slytherin house, though. Do you have houses like we do?" Fleur shakes her head.

"We take on a similar relationship, but only with those of our own year. We all sleep together in a large, communal dormitory, forming our especial bonds based on our ages rather than our shared qualities." Fleur doesn't pronounce the "u" in the word, but Harry doesn't correct her. He likes to hear her speak as she sweeps around the room, tidying things that she apparently believes are out of place and occasionally stirring the pot on the stove. "Do you like being in an 'ouse?"

"Yeah," Harry says, nodding his head. "I never considered the alternative, to be honest, but I'm really glad to be part of Slytherin house - we take care of each other." Fleur nods her head in stout approval, and she takes the pot from the stove, pouring the hot chocolate smoothly into two mugs without spilling a drop and handing one of them to Harry. As she takes a seat beside him, crossing her ankles in the most ladylike fashion possible, she sweeps her wand behind her in a careless fashion, and she sets the pot and the wooden spoon to wash in the basin.

"I wish I could do magic like that," Harry says, shaking his head slightly. "You guys all do it without thinking, almost - it's amazing that you can do it without the incantations." Fleur smiles at Harry, cupping the mug in her hands and taking a delicate sip from it.

"It is something some people have trouble with," Fleur says, "but I have no doubt you will find it very easy once you begin. Magic becomes so natural, over time, and your wand movements become more fluid, your incantations silent, your magic more... Usual. No, that isn't the word I want. Natural says it well enough, I suppose. It is part of you now, Harry, but as you grow, you become part of it also. Do you understand?"

"Yes, I think so." Harry brings the mug of cocoa up to his lips, drinking from it and finding it sweet, but not nearly as much as he expected. As Fleur settles her mug in her lap, she flicks up her eyes up to meet his. Harry lets the silence linger between them, broken only by the sound of each of them breathing and by the sound of the newly cleaned dishwear being stacked neatly upon the draining board.

"My grandmother said, Harry," Fleur murmurs, "that she saw a great crowd of people, laughing, and having good times. And as they laughed, the Death Eaters came, and she said there was blood running over the dry, brown ground. Like that in the colosseum, you know, Harry?" Fleur speaks very quietly and with an intense gravity Harry's never heard from her before, and then she takes a small drink from her mug. "You asked me if I was scared. I have not been scared in many years, but I am scared now: not for myself, but for you, Harry, and for the children here." Fleur reaches out, putting her hand gently on Harry's own, squeezing it gently, and she says, "You must lead these children. They know you, Harry, and you must be strong for them."

"I'm going to be," Harry promises. He realizes, with a vague certainty, that he doesn't feel the effect of Fleur's Veela allure at all, and when he realizes, he frowns slightly. Its affect has been lessened on him over the past while, but now he doesn't feel it at all, and why...? When Harry realizes, it's suddenly, and he stares into the dark liquid in his mug. Occlumency, obviously, blocks out the power of a Veela's allure.

"I've told you why I am scared, Harry," Fleur says, her tone smooth. "Why not tell me why you looked so sad?" Fleur's hand, still over Harry's own, is warm but dry, and Fleur leans towards him. For a strange, surreal second, Harry thinks Fleur is going to kiss him, but she simply leans closer, until their noses are nearly touching and they're eye to eye, and she says, "Is this about you and that young man? I saw the two of you walking down from the castle earlier today." Harry swallows, his mouth dry, and he feels his Adam's apple bob in his throat; Fleur's voice is hushed, and Harry finds himself unable to respond for a long few moments.

Then, he gives the smallest nod of his head.

Fleur takes back her hand, drinking from her mug, and the two of them sit in the quiet for a little while. "'Ow long have you been involved?" Fleur's voice is gentle, but she doesn't simper or talk down to him, and nor does she sound as involved as he knows Hermione would. She just asks the questions like they barely mean anything to her, and somehow, it makes them easier to answer.

"I dunno. Six months, I guess." The words come out without any feeling in them, and Fleur gives a sympathetic shake of her head.

"Ah, the romance of the young. Why is it that you broke apart?"

"Don't know if we have yet," Harry mutters. "Do you know who Elton John is?"

"I do not. Should I?"

"No." Harry drains the last of his mug, and he sets it down on the counter, putting his hands in his lap and tapping his thumb against the back of his other hand. "He's- because we're both- is it different in France? Here, it's not... It's not proper for wizards to be together." Fleur seems to consider the question, and then she flicks her wand, Summoning the magazine she'd been reading before Harry had come to talk to her. She flicks through the pages, and she settles on a double-page spread printed in glossy blues and blacks.

One wizard is stripped to his outer robe, hair dusting his chest and light glinting off of the oil there, and he's gasping into the mouth of a taller, fully-dressed man wearing even his pointed hat: beneath the calligraphy of the advertisement is a small, pink circle, and when Fleur taps it with her wand, the scent of the cologne it's an advert for comes up to meet Harry's nose, musky and slightly sweet. "What do the words mean?" Harry asks, tracing the silver letters that hang over the breathing figures of the bodies.

"Le fruit défendu," Fleur answers. "Fruit that is... The word escapes me. Banned?"

"Forbidden?"

"Yes! Yes, that is it. Forbidden fruit." Fleur leaves the magazine in his hands, and says, "It is maybe... Salacious. The thought of wizards together, or of witches together, it is perhaps thought of as very sexy. But it is not unheard of - people whisper, but people whisper all the same, in France. It is different here, and different again in other countries, Harry." Harry's gaze is glued to the magazine spread before him, the sight of the two men looking completely comfortable, the photograph no different than any normal cologne advert Harry's ever seen, but with two men instead of a man and a woman.

"France seems pretty cool," Harry says. Fleur laughs, and she taps his cheek affectionately.

"It is very cool. But not in summertime." As Harry gives a weak little laugh, Fleur stands, and when Harry sets the magazine on the counter, she shakes her head, taking it up and pushing it back into his hands. "No, Harry, keep this. You will learn something about fashion from it, perhaps." Fleur presses a kiss to the top of the head, and he murmurs a quiet thank you as he walks out of the carriage. He doesn't immediately make his way up towards the castle, and instead lingers beside it with the horses.

They're huge beasts, and Harry couldn't guess their wingspan when they're folded up against their sides, but the one that had nudged him before comes directly up to him, its big brown eyes focused on him. It towers over him, and in order to reach up to stroke its nose as he had on the steps, Harry stands on top of the stump of an old tree, reaching out and stroking its neck. The movement of his hand is slow and rhythmic, and when the horse turns, spreading one of its wings out slightly, Harry takes the hint and gently draws his fingers through the feathers there.

"So," Harry says quietly, combing through the feathers with a firm but gentle movement of his hand, "You're an Abraxan winged horse. You're pretty big, aren't you?" The horse snorts its agreement, nudging Harry in the hip with the tip of its wing, and Harry laughs a little, playing over the glossy black feathers. There are twelve of the horses, in all, and there are two other horses with a similar obsidian colour to their hair as this one, but the rest are all palamino, some with dappled white spots on their backs and haunches.

They're bigger than the Hippogriffs, and although they require strict manners, once they're greeted properly, they're pleasant enough with people - Harry has heard that Abraxans aren't especially friendly, as a rule, but this particular one seems to like him.

"The Abraxans require very forceful 'andling, Harry, and are incredibly, ah- strong-willed," says a voice behind him, and Harry turns to see Madame Maxime beside him. She's so tall that when viewed beside the Abraxan it seems like a normal horse rather than the elephantine creature it is, and she smiles, reaching out and patting the thing's rump. "But this is Père Georges. He is a very kind, middle-aged man with several children and a sensible job." Harry finds himself laughing before he even thinks about it, and Georges leans in, nudging his nose against Harry's forehead and blowing hot air through his fringe.

"Hagrid said you bred them," Harry says, glancing back at her. Hagrid, at the time, had seemed already quite in awe of Madame Maxime, and knowing that she had got dangerous animals to beget more dangerous animals had, of course, delighted Hagrid more than any other fact could possibly have done. "Do you really like magical creatures, Madame Maxime?"

"Oh, of course," she says gravely, "Otherwise I would not teach children." Harry grins, and when Georges nudges him again, Harry nudges him back, playfully, and pats his muzzle gently. "I went to school with Fleur's grandmother, Harry. She wrote to me also - you came to speak to her, yes?" Harry nods his head, and Madame Maxime puts one of her huge hands upon Harry's shoulder, patting him hard enough to wind him slightly. "Focus on losing to my girl for now, Harry. Ignore what is outside for now."

"I'm not going to lose, Madame Maxime," Harry says, grinning slightly, and he gives Georges one last pat on the muzzle before he steps down from the trunk. Maxime smiles back at him as Harry finally moves a little way away from the carriage.

It isn't even 11 o'clock yet, and Harry desperately wants something to do with his day that doesn't involve lingering in the castle and avoiding Blaise, or avoiding other people, or being around people. When Harry reaches the courtyard, he hesitates at the top of the hill, and he turns to look at the Whomping Willow, which is enjoying the summer weather and occasionally plucking birds out of the sky.

In the distance, slightly away from the village, Harry can see the roof of the Shrieking Shack, and with a nod of his head, he makes his way into the castle.

* * *

Neither Blaise nor Draco are in the Slytherin common room, and when Harry glances at the Marauders' Map, he sees that the both of them are upstairs in the library. He goes to the wardrobe, pulling out an outer set of green day robes, and he puts on his latest jumper from Mrs Weasley and a pair of jeans, retaining his dragonhide school boots. With the day robes over top the outfit, he's dressed in a way not dissimilar to Arthur Weasley, and then he looks to the mirror over his desk.

Taking off his glasses, he charms the metal of the frame green so that they're wide and square, and then he focuses on his hair in the mirror. It's not really possible to spell one's hair convincingly a different colour in a way that lasts, but he doesn't need it for too long, so he charms his hair an auburn red. Looking at himself in the mirror, ginger fringe combed over his scar with square glasses and a mix of Muggle and magical clothing, he knows that he doesn't look like Harry Potter.

Smiling a little, he shoves his coin purse into a satchel, and he throws his father's Invisbility Cloak over his shoulders.


	97. Year Four: Squibs and Followers

As Harry moves to the edge of the Shrieking Shack, where Sirius had kicked out a few boards in order to get in and out last year, he pulls on his cloak again, and he's invisible as he makes his way slowly down the hill and into the edge of the woods. He's careful about glancing around, and then he pulls off his cloak, setting it neatly inside the satchel.

After making sure his fringe is pulled down over his eyes, he puts his hands in his pockets, and he makes his way out of he woods and into the village. He's conscious of the way he walks, wondering if it in itself is recognizable, and he's not stupid enough to go into the Three Broomsticks or into the Hog's Head, where he knows Madam Rosmerta or the old man in the Hog's Head will immediately recognize him, vague disguise or not.

There are people walking in Hogsmeade, chatting together and buying pastries from a stall on the green; with the early summer sun shining down, various wizards and witches are walking through the streets of Hogsmeade in mixed kinds of brightly coloured clothes, and he can see people on dates, people out with their families, children playing over the green. Harry's only ever seen groups of magical people this big in King's Cross Station or the Ministry, or in Diagon Alley, and it feels completely different to see them in Hogsmeade like this.

It seems so naked and lacking in the usual secrecy - there are no cavernous ceilings over the crowd, and no high walls on every side. Harry never realized how good the brim of a wizard's hat was for keeping off the glare of the sunshine.

He takes a step away from the main street of Hogsmeade and down to a side street; the post office is here, as well as a small pet shop, a modest stationery store and a secondhand store. It's the latter that Harry makes his way towards, and as soon as he's inside, he feels the pleasant difference in temperature, letting the coolness of the cluttered room settle on his skin.

He likes antique shops and secondhand stores, the way they pile up junk and flotsam around on all the shelves, and he takes a long time moving slowly through the room, peering with interest at all the objects on the shelves. There are toys, records, knick-knacks, clothes, jewellery, instruments...

Harry reaches up and onto a shelf, taking down something that glints in the light from the window. The dagger is perhaps six inches long with a bronzed hilt, and he finds that he likes the weight of it in his hand. On a whim, he places it on the side of his hand, and the hilt and blade are perfectly balanced, remaining still and not bobbing at all one way or the other.

He takes it over to the front of the shop, and he looks at the old man behind the counter. He's a wizened old wizard with slight bags under his eyes, and he squints at Harry for a few moments as he sets the dagger down on the glass surface between them.

"Shouldn't you be in school, young man?" comes the quavering question, and Harry stares directly into his face for a second or two.

"Er, no, sir," Harry says. He glances down at his feet, making himself sway awkwardly as he tries to think desperately of something. Being expelled would be too much to explain, and Harry doesn't know enough about any of the other schools to use them as a lie... "Er- I'm here with my family for the day. I'm a Squib, sir." Immediately, the man's suspicious demeanour drains away like water down a plughole, and he hurriedly takes up a brown paper bag, neatly wrapping up the dagger and mumbling the price. Harry hands over the coins, offering the old man a small smile, and he gives a nod of his head in response, obviously trying to be as friendly as possible without actually talking to him.

Harry steps out into the street, neatly placing the wrapped dagger into his bag, and he thinks as he walks, his hands in his pockets. He walks more casually than he had before, not overthinking every step he makes: instead, he thinks about the old man's reaction to having a Squib in his shop. It wasn't hostility or anger or fear, but simple embarrassment, maybe mixed with sympathy, and Harry can't help but keep on thinking about it.

The dagger in his bag had been a complete whim, and he doesn't even know what he'll do with it - maybe use it as a letter-opener - but this is something slightly different. He doesn't wish to linger in Hogsmeade, and instead he dips into the woods again and out of the way, throwing his cloak on over his shoulders and dipping his head down, but rather than making his way back to the Shrieking Shack, he begins to walk up the path towards the mountains.

Keeping his Invisibility Cloak on his back and fastened shut, he walks quietly in the middle of the dirt path, keeping away from the outcrops of rock and the trees on either side. He keeps his eyes open for the signs of thick strung webbing between the trees, but he doesn't see any at all, and he's almost disappointed: he'd been interested in seeing how the Acromantula were adjusting to the lighter forests outside in Hogsmeade. They're far enough from Muggle towns that they can linger for the time being, but Harry knows that the Ministry will try to contain them if they branch out as they had done in the Forbidden Forest.

He knows the path up towards the mountains, even though he hasn't walked it very often, but he doesn't really have a focused idea of how far he's going to walk or where precisely he's going. He just knows that he has no real wish to be in Hogsmeade, where he can't risk going in too many places even whilst pretending to be a Squib, and he knows he'll not really cross paths with anyone up near the cliff edges, where the mountains tower high above you. Harry's seen videos on the news of people climbing or abseiling, and he vaguely thinks that he might like to do it as he lets his gaze flicker up to the yellow cliff side that banks up before him in the distance.

It must be so exciting, to climb like that without knowing at any time if you might fall or not, trying to get footholds and handholds in the side of something as huge and unyielding as a mountain...

Harry reaches, after walking for maybe forty minutes or so, a wide, open clearing, trees on all three sides with the fourth opening right up against the cliff face. The path continues in two directions, both clinging to the side of the mountain to the left and to the right, and when Harry turns around, looking down the path he'd taken, Hogsmeade is further away than he'd thought it could be. The path hadn't been too steep, but he realizes now how much he'd climbed, and he feels a vague sense of accomplishment and satisfaction, sitting down on a smooth rock to the edge of the flat space.

He'll stay here for a little while to think, letting his legs have a rest, and then he'll make his way back into town and in towards the Shrieking Shack. He glances around the clearing, and then he frowns slightly.

The floor of the clearing is... Very smooth.

It isn't like the dirt path he'd walked up of, naturally giving away in places under the pressure of his boots or with weeds growing here and there. There are no weeds at all, and the the oval of space between the trees has no weeds at all, no imperfections. The stone Harry is sat on is one of the only different things about the smooth, flat ground, but the other large pieces of rock are the same: no moss on them, no plants, and each smooth and at the perfect height for someone to sit on.

Six of them.

Harry freezes in his place, even under the safety of the Invisibility Cloak, and he looks to the side of the mountain, he sees absolutely nothing odd about it. It seems just as normal as the rest of the cliff spanning up above him, or to the sides, but the ground here is so smooth.

Harry pulls himself to the edge of the stone to walk down the path again, but he freezes as he turns to look the other way. With a quiet pop of sound, Gilderoy Lockhart appears before Harry's wide eyes, a smile on his face. He's wearing a set of forest-green robes at the height of fashion, and his hair is longer than Harry's ever seen it, down to his shoulders and tied neatly behind his head by a green ribbon. It's thick and wavy, and the ribbon seems to be struggling to contain its volume.

"Now then," Lockhart says, clapping his hands together, and he leads a group of four people forwards - but Lockhart couldn't possibly have Side-Along Apparated with four people. Harry scans the faces of each of them, and finds he vaguely recognizes them all, but he doesn't know any of their names. A keeper of records for the Ministry, a butcher who works in Diagon Alley, a model Harry recognizes from a poster of Fred's, and a train conductor Harry's seen the past few years on the Hogwarts Express all stand around Lockhart, who looks more serious than Harry's ever seen him.

Lockhart's lost a little weight, and the effect is to make the bones in his face stand out more, but there's a pink scar under his jawline against his neck that Harry's never noticed again, and Lockhart's hands have more muscle on them than Harry's seen before. He looks like a completely different man, and he steps forwards into the centre of the cliffside, glancing back to the people with him.

"Well, then!" Lockhart says, and then, "I suppose this is your last chance to back out, really. We shan't do anything about it, if you do change your minds - we shan't force you."

"We want to be here," says the train conductor - he has a thick Scottish accent. "You know we do, Gilderoy, after weeks of this." Lockhart's smile is small, not one of the big, fake things Harry's seen before, and so he takes another step back.

"Well," Lockhart says, "The secret hideout of ours is located... Just here!" He flourishes his hands in the overdramatic way Harry is used to, and Harry follows the point of his hands. For one moment, the cliffside is completely the same as it had been before, but when Harry blinks, there's a broad opening to a cave, and Harry can't believe he hadn't noticed it before. It had been right there, after all - it's like his eyes have just come into focus. Inside the cave is a red rug covering its floor, and hanging from its ceiling are oil lanterns. There is normal furniture inside - sofas, a chair, even a huge, old-fashioned stove with a small chimney. "Come in," Lockhart says. "We've a lot to talk about."

Lockhart leads his little crew of people into the cave, and Harry creeps after them, taking a little distance.

At the back of Lockhart's effective entrance hall is an archway, and Harry follows as silently as he can up the little corridor until they all arrive in a huge atrium of sorts. Harry has never seen wallpaper on the walls of a cave before, but it is extremely fashionable in black and gold, and somehow Lockhart's managed to make it look like it should be there.

Around this great hall are a lot of circular tables with chairs dotted around them, and with different people sat at them, people Harry recognizes and those that Harry does not.

"Welcome, all of you," says a voice Harry recognizes, and he turns to see Gladys Gudgeon with her arms open and a smile on her face. "Come, take a seat - Sara is just bringing in a few more people, and then we're all going to eat together." Gudgeon smiles at them, and then she moves to Lockhart, catching him by the arm with one of her perfectly manicured nails. Harry creeps forwards, ensuring he keep out of the way of people moving, and he follows Gudgeon and Lockhart as they walk down another corridor and into a beautifully decorated room with several ovens running, the stove tops covered. Harry sees several corridors leading off the atrium, and there are others leading off this kitchen. How much have they carved into the mountain, these people?

"Did they all come, Gilderoy?" asks Jacqueline Flockhart, who is sat at the table in the kitchen, and Lockhart nods his head. Bonnie Darling, who is moving at speed around the kitchen with her wand in her hand shoos Lockhart and Gudgeon to sit down at the table, and with casual wand work sets a dozen plates on the surface of the table, beginning to fill them with food. Harry stares at the perfectly prepared little pies, chips, plates of pork and chicken wings, and when he breathes in, he's reminded of how hungry he is.

"They all came," Lockhart confirms, and he smiles slightly. "Ladies, I do believe we'll be able to go right ahead."

"Shouldn't Sara be back by now?" Darling asks, a little anxiously, and Flockhart hushes her quietly, reaching out and touching her back as she stops beside them, a spatula in hand.

"She'll be back in a few minutes, Bonnie, don't worry so. She's not nearly so young as she looks." Darling huffs, but she gives a reluctant nod of his head, and Harry frowns from the side of the room, looking between the lot of them and trying to figure out what is going on. "We're ready, Gilderoy, I'm sure. This is brave of you, I hope you realize."

"What else could we do, at this point?" Lockhart asks, and Harry's frown deepens. "With Chad dead-" He trails off, and then he nods his head. "After food, we'll get into it." Lockhart actually looks worried, and Harry can't really believe it: Lockhart has lines on his face, a frown twisting his features, and he awkwardly moves his knee under the table, bouncing it again and again. What the Hell could possibly be going on?

"I'll help you, Bonnie," Flockhart says, standing as Darling puts out another set of plates, and before Flockhart can make her way down corridor with the plates hovering behind her, Darling grabs her by the front of the robes, and kisses her on the mouth. Harry stares, shocked, as the two old women kiss, smile into each other's mouths, and then draw apart again, with Flockhart taking a series of plates down the corridor with her.

Lockhart and Gudgeon didn't seem to have even noticed.

"You're ready, darling," Gudgeon is saying quietly, and she puts one of her hands on Lockhart's. "And we're all ready with you. Come on, now." Harry stays stockstill as Lockhart and Gudgeon move down the corridor, and he keeps in his place as Darling finishes plating up her day's labour, making the plates hover down the corridor in front of her.

For a long few moments, Harry stays still in the empty kitchen, wondering if he's having some sort of very real, very abstract dream.

And then, steeling himself, he follows Darling down the corridor.


	98. Year Four: The Colour Of Light

Harry spends the next few minutes hovering at the very edge of the atrium of Lockhart's hide-out, looking out across the tables. Fed by Bonnie Darling, there are maybe forty or fifty wizards and witches throughout the room, settled and eating, but they're all preoccupied. They constantly glance up to Lockhart, who remains on his feet to speak with Gladys Gudgeon, and when she arrives, a very young woman in a set of blue dress robes with glitter shining from her skirts. She brings another half-dozen people who settle down at the tables, and Harry frowns deeply as he tries to understand what the Hell Lockhart has these people for.

"Sara," Gudgeon says, touching the young woman's forearm, and Sara meets the older woman's gaze before giving a nod of her head. Sara's magic is silent as she draws her wand across the room, dimming the lanterns hanging from the ceiling, and she Vanishes the empty plates from the table with an obscene ease. Harry can't help but stare, as Sara looks like she might be perhaps nineteen or twenty, and her command over the magic around her is more like something he's seen from Professor McGonagall or Professor Flitwick.

"Thank you ever so much for joining us," Lockhart says, and he stands before a fireplace that has been carved directly into the rock of the large cave (although, Harry notes, the wallpaper has been perfectly moulded around its edges). Lockhart's expression is serious, and he doesn't gesticulate as much as he does usually. "You know how we came to be here: no doubt you've followed the story in the papers the past year - Azkaban, our appearances in Hogsmeade, and Chad." There are a few murmurs about the room, and Lockhart nods his head, studying the faces of those around him. "Chad was murdered recently, as I'm sure you know: it was retribution, in part, for a murder he committed of Belle Rosier."

There are murmurs around the room, but Lockhart doesn't seem to be annoyed or interested by them: he doesn't seem to even notice the reactions of his audience, his blue eyes glazed over and focusing somewhere else entirely.

"Chad was murdered by Death Eaters." Abruptly, the whispers cease. Every eye in the room is on Lockhart, and he takes in a few breaths before he goes on, keeping his audience rapt as he says, "You-Know-Who has returned, and he is slowly gaining power. All of you here are old enough to remember the war, old enough to have lost people during the fight. I myself left Hogwarts and immediately began to travel abroad - I missed the true horrors of that time." Lockhart stands a little straighter, his hands clasped solemnly before him - this is the first time Harry's ever seen him address an audience and not gesticulate wildly.

"When I was broken out of Azkaban, I didn't have a plan. I wanted revenge on those who'd put me there, and I didn't think of what had truly happened - we destroyed the wizarding prison, and as someone who has spent time there..." The glazed look intensifies for a moment, and then Lockhart says, "You cannot possibly know how truly terrible that place was." He speaks in barely a whisper, and goes on to add, "But the Death Eaters escaped with Chad and I, and now they surround You-Know-Who as he readies himself for war once more."

"You suggesting we build an army?" asks the train conductor of the Hogwarts Express, and Lockhart turns to look at him.

"Yes," he says simply. The word rings through the room, and Lockhart studies the faces of the people in front of him. Harry stares, silent, and he looks from Lockhart to the others in the room - there are quietly interested or shocked expressions on each of those gathered, and Gladys Gudgeon is serious, standing behind Lockhart and looking for all the world like his mother. "Would you have You-Know-Who's forces take the world by storm?"

"Why us? Why you?" Lockhart hesitates, and then he looks to Bonnie Darling and Jacqueline Flockhart, who are standing together. Harry follows his gaze, and he sees the way the two women's hands are still entwined.

"I never planned to build an army," Lockhart says. "But during the war, the fight was between You-Know-Who and his Death Eaters, killing Muggleborns and those sorts, and between light wizards and witches - but did anything change? Those of you who are Muggleborn, do you truly feel accepted by the world around you? Those of you with mixed blood in your veins, the w-werewolves, don't you still have to keep yourself registered with the Ministry as if you're less than people?" Lockhart stumbles on the word "werewolf", but none of his audience seem to really notice: they're all focused on him, and Harry wonders which of them are werewolves until he notices the two of them with the familiar shabby clothes, the tired, sickly looks about them. They remind Harry of Remus, and he feels a twist of something in his gut.

There's something not quite right about this situation, and he wonders, for a second, if this is some incredibly abstract dream, if he'd fallen and hit his head on the walk up the mountain.

"You-Know-Who, for the time being, doesn't really care about us," comes the strong, ringing voice of Gladys Gudgeon, and she looks around the assembled witches and wizards with her carefully glossed lips pursed, her expression focused. "He should like Gilderoy and the rest of us dead, like Chad, but we're not high on his list of priorities. We have an opportunity to work together and become a force of our own."

"A force? Why should we fight someone like You-Know-Who?"

"We all have something to fight for," Jacqueline Flockhart says. Her voice, usually sharp and piercing, is slightly quiet, but Harry still hears it at the very edge of the atrium. Flockhart's hand is entwined tightly with Bonnie Darling's, and Harry stares at the way their fingers look; Flockhart's fingers are thinner and bony, with bright green polish upon the long nails, and Darling's fingers are more plump with flour still dusting the knuckles. "War is coming. Why should we go through another war, see more of our children, our loved ones die, to go back to the same state of things? Don't you wish life were different than it is? Don't you wish-"

Flockhart trails off, and she seems uncharacteristically uncertain. Silence abounds in the room, and then someone's watch chimes.

"Sorry!" the wizard in question says, dragging it from his pocket by the chain. "Seven o'clock, need to drink my potion." Harry stiffens. Seven o'clock? Shit. He begins to shuffle as silently as he can around the edge of the room, barely daring to breathe as he makes his way behind Lockhart, behind Dean-Smith, and as fast as he can out of the cave's entrance - he runs as fast as he can possibly manage down the hillside and towards the Shrieking Shack, doing his best not to stumble as he goes.

* * *

Harry manages to sneak up the grassy knoll and towards the castle, and once inside, he moves down two or three lesser-used corridors from the entrance hall and begins to make his way towards the kitchens. He'd barely been aware of how long it had taken to walk up into the hills, and now he's back in the castle, he's aware of how utterly ravenous he is. Dinner will just be ending in the great hall, and he doesn't wish to try to explain himself as he heads in, so he walks carefully down a corridor towards the portrait of the fruit that leads to the kitchen.

He sets the heel of his boots down first, putting his sole down on the ground quietly enough that he doesn't even make a quiet tap as the toe of his boot touches the stone flagstone beneath him. He has to move slowly, but he doesn't truly mind - the corridors are entry during dinner, and when he tickles the fruit and slips inside the kitchen, he lets out an exhalation of utter relief.

Flying through the air are soaped dishes and trays and serving platters, being wiped clean or dried off and stacked in gigantic cabinets.

"Sorry," Harry says, and one little elf with huge, watery eyes stares up at him. "Could one of you give me a plate of some sandwiches or something? I'm sorry, I missed dinner-"

"Oh, yes, sir!" says the little thing, rushing off into the mess of the kitchen's action, and Harry makes his way slowly towards the stools settled by the fire. He looks at the back of the deep, red armchair settled by the fire, and he sighs a quiet sigh of relief: he can't wait to just settle into that big, cushioned thing, kick off his boots and-

"Is there a reason, Potter, that you have been absent from the castle for the past half-day?" Harry stares at the back of the armchair. Oh, no. No, no, no. Harry's shoulders slump, and he pads forwards to stand beside the armchair. Straight-backed, a copy of a German newspaper Harry can't read folded across his lap, Snape's black eyes meet Harry's.

"I guess I'm in a lot of trouble, huh?"

"Undoubtedly."

"And I'm not going to be able to sit in that chair."

"Assuredly not."

"And you're angry."

"You overestimate my investment."

"You're going to give me detention?"

"At least."

"You want an explanation?"

"Get on with it." Harry meets Snape's gaze, sitting slowly on a stool, and he glances at the fire as he politely takes the plate handed to him by a little house elf at his elbow. Should he lie?

"I snuck out," Harry says, voice quiet. He breathes in, breathes out, closes his eyes. He feels the warmth of the plate in his hands and, most crucially, it's wonderful weight. He opens his eyes and looks down at the stacked sandwiches on the plate, all made up of mixed fillings, and he worries his lower lip under his teeth. He's ridiculously hungry, but he knows he won't be able to eat with Snape's eyes boring into him, so he sets the plate aside, turns to Snape properly, and begins to talk.


	99. Year Four: The Chess Game

"Didn't know you could speak German," Harry says some time later, picking at little pieces of a ham sandwich and eating barely a mouthful at a time as he looks not at his Head of House but at the newspaper discarded on the table; Snape is holding his head in his left hand, pinching the bridge of his nose. Snape's thin, pale lips are pressed together in a very thin line, his black eyes closed, and although he's almost perfectly composed, Harry can feel the fury radiating from him. "So, yeah, Lockhart's, like... Building an, uh, army. And I-"

"What do you think would have happened, Potter," Snape says, in a very quiet, very measured voice, and despite the position of his hand it isn't muffled in the least: Snape's tone is cool and his vowels are clipped, making it all-too-easy to understand him. "Had Lockhart discovered you?"

"I-"

"Or if one of his lackeys had?"

"Well-"

"Or if you had been spied in Hogsmeade by a follower of the Dark Lord?"

"But-"

"Shut up." Harry does. It's actually difficult to tell whether Snape is tired or not, most of the time, because the man always has dark circles under his eyes and gives the impression of one of those genius types that doesn't sleep much anyway and just gets by on a mix of black coffee and loathing for everyone around him, but Harry would guess that he's tired now - tired of Harry if not in general. "I find it difficult, Potter, to even conceive of what manner of idiocy you must hold in that head of yours."

"It's not all bad, though," Harry says, speaking quickly so that Snape can't shut him up. "I know it was dangerous but I found out something really important and I-"

"Potter, do you think the Order was not already aware of Lockhart's plans?" Harry stares at him.

"You knew? Why wasn't I told? I'm a member, I-"

"Do you wish for me to spell you silent, Potter?" Harry shuts his mouth. An icy cold shiver runs down his spine, and Snape's hand slides slowly down to his chin: he looks at the low fire in the hearth before them, the flames reflected in his black, black irises. Harry's never seen a Muggle with irises as black as Snape has - maybe only wizards can have eyes like that. "For the duration of the next month, without my express permission, you are not to leave the castle. Should you need to train with Mr Diggory in the grounds, you will ask me personally for the privilege."

"Are you serious? I'm not allowed to go outside?" Harry stares at the other man, utterly taken aback - what sort of insane punishment is this? What happened to detentions, or taking away points? "With due respect, sir, just because you have a vitamin D deficiency doesn't mean I should have one too!"

"For your lack of understanding as to what the phrase "due respect" might entail, Potter, I will remove twenty points from Slytherin house. You will be serving detention with me every Friday, Saturday and Sunday evening for the next month also." Despite Harry's rudeness, Snape seems to become calmer by the second, his posture remaining stiff but not as plainly furious, and there isn't as much tension in his tone.

"Sir, come on-"

"Do you truly wish to add to your punishment, Potter?"

"It's just-" Harry sighs, putting his head in his hands. "Professor, isn't this just punishing you as much as me? You don't want to hang out with me for three days a week for the next month." He doesn't think he imagines the momentary twitch of Snape's upper lip before it thins into a line again - he might not have convinced him, and he knows it's not in Snape's nature to be soft on anyone, but he maybe managed a half-second of amusement.

"We will not, Potter, be "hanging out". You will be scrubbing cauldrons, silently, and thinking on your very deserved punishment, and I shall be continuing my usual business." Taking a miserable bite of a cucumber sandwich, Harry looks into the fire, leaning back in his seat. "One would think you might have realized, Potter, that your life is not about yourself only. You must be aware of those around you: those who might have grieved your loss had you been killed or attacked, particularly given the prophecy you released - you cannot afford your usual stupidity, and ought borrow the use of someone else's sense of self-preservation if you cannot muster one yourself. Go to bed."

"Yes, sir," Harry mutters, and reluctantly, he stands. He hesitates for a few, long seconds, and when he meets Snape's gaze, the Potionsmaster arches one eyebrow expectantly. "You going to tell Dumbledore?"

"I can leave the privilege to you, if you'd rather."

"No," Harry says immediately, shaking his head, and then says, "Thanks, sir." He walks at speed from the kitchen, feeling from pure instinct that Snape isn't bothering to watch him leave, and he makes his way down towards the Slytherin common room. Draco is already fast asleep in bed, despite it not being very late, and Harry quietly takes off his boots and slides into his own bed, blowing out the candles. Closing his curtains, Harry lies on his back in bed, looking up at the filtered moonlight coming in from above. With the lake acting to colour the light, his bed is bathed in soft, green hues that shift with the wind above on the surface of the water, and usually this would soothe him, but it doesn't tonight.

Harry stays awake for the longest time, lying in his place in bed and barely moving. Snape was just being dramatic - he'd had the cloak on nearly the whole time, and he'd charmed his hair at one point anyway, so it's not like anyone would have recognized him even if the cloak had come off for some reason.

And when had the enchantments fallen away from his glasses, from his hair? He hadn't even noticed, but when he'd come into the Slytherin common room he'd noticed in a mirror that they were completely gone - and maybe it was stupid of him not to keep an eye on them.

Harry sits up in bed, setting his candle alight and looking at the small clock upon his bedside table: coming up to two in the morning. That means there are two days now, until the final task - he has today, and he has tomorrow, and then he and Cedric face up against whatever's going to meet them on the dirt ground of the arena.

Harry sighs, blowing out his candle and lying on his belly in bed, pressing his face into the pillow.

Whatever it is, it can't be as bad as a misfit army captained by Gilderoy Lockhart, or worse, a blind basilisk.

* * *

"You look terrible," Hermione says when Harry sits across from her at breakfast, settled as she is next to Ginny Weasley; Ginny gives Harry a sympathetic wince, shaking her head.

"Didn't you sleep, Harry?"

"Not really," he admits, shrugging his shoulders a little. The shadows under his eyes are very dark, as he'd seen in the mirror that morning, and his eyes feel very, very dry. He'd planned to sit alone at the Slytherin table for breakfast, having come down very early in the morning, but he'd seen Blaise sat there and-

Well. Harry had thought better of it.

"We should go for a walk after breakfast," Hermione says quietly. "Do some training for the Task on Tuesday."

"Can't," Harry mutters, and Hermione's bushy eyebrows furrow in confusion, her head tilting slightly to the side, until Harry says, "Snape's banned me from going outside without permission." Hermione stares at him, opening and closing her mouth as she tries to think of some way to respond, but Ginny just sniggers.

"Merlin's beard, Harry, you really know how to piss that man off. Even Fred and George have never got a punishment like that." Harry gives Ginny an awkward, self-deprecating smile, and she shakes her head, laughing, before pushing her empty bowl of porridge aside. She lingers at the Ravenclaw table for a few moments, talking with a girl Harry's seen Luna talk to, and then the two of them walk off together.

"We can just walk through some of the upstairs corridors," Hermione says, her voice quiet. "No one wanders high in the castle on the weekends anyway." When they stand, they walk together; Harry's hands settle in his pockets, and he moves slowly beside Hermione as they walk up the moving staircases - it's better not to move too fast anyway, so you can't lose your balance. They walk in silence until they reach one of the landings on the sixth floor, on the opposite side of the hall of staircases to the Fat Lady's portrait - Harry can see her squinting at him and Hermione as they slip off and into one of the well-carpeted, warm corridors.

They walk until they reach one of the outer walkways, where the wide windows let in the bright, summer sun and make motes of dust dance obviously in the air, dragged up from the carpets and rugs and pulled out of the tapestries and quilts hanging from the walls. The sixth and seventh floors aren't bare as a lot of the lower corridors are, but seem to be the place to store the knitted or sewed or embroidered things, just as hundreds of paintings and portraits hang about the hall of staircases.

Harry's sure that there'll come a day when Hogwarts is just so full of magical artifacts and knick-knacks and ornaments that they'll have to actually start chucking some of it out, but that time won't be for a while yet.

"You didn't sit next to Blaise this morning," Hermione says softly.

"No," Harry says, "We kind of, uh, broke up. I broke us up." Hermione is silent for a long time. Their boots don't make any noise on the mismatched, colourful carpets covering the stone floors, and their steps are synchronized. "Yesterday, I left him in this clearing by the gate, and then I talked to Fleur, and then- A lot happened."

"I didn't see you," Hermione admits, "I thought something must be wrong. I was desperate to interrogate you about it, but I thought you might tell me before I needed to." Harry laughs. The sound is muffled a little by all the fabric hanging from the walls and covering the ground, and he nudges Hermione in the side. "What did you do? To make Snape say that?"

"I snuck out of the castle." Hermione's eyes widen, and her light smile fades away, replaced by an expression of mixed indignation and horror.

"You didn't, Harry!"

"Wait, Hermione, just listen..." And Hermione, reluctantly, does.

* * *

By the time Harry's done telling her everything, having suffered only very minor interruptions and threats upon his life for having risked his life, he and Hermione are up in one of the attic-like corridors just above the seventh floor - there isn't really an eighth floor per se, but there are a few little walkways with low ceilings and cobwebs all around, where the House Elves don't bother to clean and virtually no one ever goes.

"I'm not surprised they didn't tell us," Hermione murmurs, bowing her head to duck under a low-hanging beam as she follows Harry into a right-turning. They stop, holding up their illuminated wands, and Harry watches as Hermione traces the ancient, musty books scattered along a shelf in front of them - a shelf that seems to be held together with mould and spiderwebs rather than its original nails. "If they're basically putting a spy in with Lockhart's group, I mean, and they could hardly put it in a letter. That's so weird, though - Lockhart getting together his own- his own army. He's an idiot. Did he really look that different?"

"Completely different," Harry says with a nod of his head, and they begin to walk again as Hermione abandons the books in front of them. They have to walk slowly here to make sure they don't step on any loose boards or on anything that might break or shatter, but it's nice to know they probably won't run into anyone. "With the scar on his neck, with the long hair... I think he's even put on a little bit of muscle. I mean, he's not a body builder or anything, but he definitely looks more solid than before." The two of them duck under a low beam, and they come into a little attic room with a round window to one side, decorated with stained glass: the Gryffindor lion is in its centre, and when Harry looks out of a piece of red glass, he looks down into the grounds below. "I think we're in the Gryffindor tower, between the common room and the dormitories upstairs."

"Mmm," Hermione says. To the edges of the room are a few stacked crates, and when Harry glances in one he grins. "What is it?"

"Gripton's Firewhiskey," Harry says, taking out a bottle and examining it. "Bottled as of 1977." Hermione laughs, taking another bottle from the crate and looking at it before glancing around the room. It's thick with dust, and other than the crates stacked in the corner and a few books, there's just a table with two chairs either side of it, and a half-finished chess game. Harry doesn't know much about chess, but he can see that the white side is winning, as the black has lost its queen, its queenside rook and both knights, as well as half of its pawns, and the white side still seems pretty strong.

"No one's been up here since the seventies or the eighties, I'd bet," Hermione murmurs, and she crouches on the ground, looking through the stack of books. She pulls out a magazine from the pile and shakes of the dust, and then she groans, throwing it to Harry.

"What?" Harry asks, and he looks at the cover. Harry laughs so hard he breathes in a lungful of dust, and he ends up trying to cough it out even while laughing. On the magazine's front is a young, oiled-up wizard, being made love to by a centaur. The enchantment's died a little from the pages, and so the movements of the man and the centaur are a little bit stunted, but the scene is still pretty filthy. "It's porn."

"Of course it is," Hermione says, putting her head in her hands. "Centaur porn!"

"It isn't all centaur porn," Harry murmurs, trying not to laugh for the sake of his sore throat, looking through the pages. "I think it's just Ancient Greece themed." He drops the magazine aside, looking back to the chess game, and he frowns slightly, drawing his thumb over the side of the board. There, engraved in a thick cursive, it says, _To our son, Sirius Black, on the auspicious day of his thirteenth birthday._

There's no signature.

"Come on, Harry," Hermione says, smiling at him, and Harry follows her back into the little walkway - though not before grabbing three bottles of the Firewhiskey and shoving them into his bag. After all, with the Tournament nearly at a close, they're going to be celebrating or commiserating, and he knows he'll want some alcohol to hand either way.


	100. Year Four: Don't Touch The Lava

"Hey, there, kiddo," Sirius says as Harry crosses the threshold from the great hall into the entrance hall, and immediately Harry throws himself at his godfather, enveloping him in a hug. Sirius laughs, hugging Harry tightly back, and then he smacks Harry affectionately on the back before letting him give Remus a hug as well. Standing in the doorway, he sees Lucius and Narcissa standing together, and he gives them a smile, heading over to them - he's not surprised when Narcissa gives him a tight hug, nor when Lucius gently pats the side of his cheek.

"You guys here to watch the Third Task?" Harry asks, and Lucius gives a small incline of his head. Harry taps his fingers against his thigh, bouncing a little from his toes back onto his heels, and he feels Sirius' hand touch against his shoulder. He'd spent all day in one of the unused classrooms with Cedric, going through drills for one situation or another, and now the day is finally here, he is...

Well.

Harry actually doesn't feel anxious, or worried, or anything like that - if anything, he just wants to get going. He guesses this is what Muggle sprinters feel like just before the starting gun goes off: he just wants to start already, without wanting to wait around, but he isn't really scared. He'd been rushing around that morning, throwing on his cloths - he'd laid a robe out ready to take up in the morning, but one of the lads must have stolen it during the night as a joke, and he'd had to rush around to grab a different one.

"Have you been training, Harry?" Narcissa asks, her expression serious and her tone slightly stern, and Harry nods his head. Narcissa's arm is linked with Lucius', and she leans slightly against him, but while Narcissa seems the epitome of calm, Harry can see the slight tremor through the dragonhide of Lucius' black gloves.

"Yes, Ma'am," he says, nodding his head, and then he says, "Me and Cedric are going to win this, Lucius - don't worry."

"Cedric and I," is all Lucius says in stiff response, and Harry hears Sirius laugh.

"He's been worrying about you all week," Sirius says gleefully, and although he isn't at all deterred by the furious glare Lucius levels at him, Remus seems to be deterred on his behalf, and nudges Sirius in the side. "But, uh, so have I, obviously," Sirius adds after a pause, and Harry laughs.

"Good luck, Harry," Lucius says quietly, in a voice that isn't especially warm but nonetheless holds a quiet gentleness, putting his hand on Harry's shoulder, and then he and Narcissa move out into the courtyard together, making their way down the hill and towards the colosseum.

"How are you feeling?" Remus asks, and Harry examines his face - in the past few months, Remus has looked healthier, less pallid, with more colour coming into his face, and Harry's seen that he's put on weight. He looks a little pale today, and Harry can see that he's stiff with worry, but he's trying to hide it.

"I'm feeling pretty great," Harry replies lightly, giving a small shrug of his shoulders. "Really, Remus, I'm feeling confident."

"That's what worries me," Remus murmurs, displaying the mildest hint of further anxiety, and Harry laughs. Sirius does too, smacking Remus affectionately on the back, and when McGonagall comes out of the great hall, Remus steps away to speak with her. Harry walks outside alongside Sirius, their steps in sync as they move out of the courtyard and over the grass down the hill.

"Found your old chess set," Harry says, and Sirius glances at him, confusion on his face. "In the crawlspace in the Gryffindor tower - we found some crates of firewhiskey, your old chess board halfway through a game... Some magazines." Sirius begins to laugh, first a little chuckle, and then a loud guffaw that rings out over the grounds as he throws his head back, clutching at his own belly. When he finally stops, catching his breath as best he can and wiping a tear from one of his eyes, he shakes his head, looking up at the fluffy, white clouds in the sky.

"Merlin, those magazines..." Sirius mutters, shaking his head. His cheeks are red from laughing, the tops of them wet with tears, and he grabs Harry in half a hug, pulling him close and pressing his nose into the top of Harry's hair, his breath hot against Harry's scalp. "I'd forgotten about that." Sirius pats Harry's shoulder, walking with him, half-leaning on Harry, and he says, "That was just me and James' spot. We'd go there when Peter and Remus were in class, or when they were off doing something. Me and James were friends first, before the four of us all really got friendly together." Sirius lets Harry go, and they walk side-by-side again, with Harry glancing at Sirius thoughtfully.

There's quiet between them: the only sound is the light rustle the summer breeze makes in the leaves off to the side of them, and distantly Harry can hear some cries far off in the Forbidden Forest. Sounds like something's being disturbed, whatever it is, but it's not uncommon to hear weird noises from the woods on the wind, especially in the summer time.

"Who was winning?" Sirius asks. "The chess game?"

"White," Harry says, and Sirius' chuckle is rueful.

"Yeah. James always made me play black - said it was my namesake." Harry sniggers, shaking his head, and Sirius' grin is soft. Looking off to the side, Sirius' fond smile only lasts a few moments, and then it fades away from his face, replaced with a frown. "Who's that?"

Harry turns his head to look, and he sees at the edge of the wood a short figure disappearing under the canopy of the trees. Harry frowns, furrowing his brow slightly, and he shares a look with Sirius before he realizes.

"It must have been Flitwick," Harry says, understanding dawning, and he shakes his head, turning with Sirius away from the forest to walk towards the colosseum. "Probably doing some extra wards at the edge of the forest - you know how they're taking security a little more seriously with people on the grounds for the tournament."

"Harry!" calls a voice from the path, and Cedric waves to him, gesturing for Harry to join him. "Come on, they want us to get in the tent!"

"Good luck, Harry," Sirius says, giving Harry one last hug, and he ruffles Harry's hair. "You don't need it, though." Harry nods his head, and he sprints up the grassy knoll up to Cedric, and the two of them walk through the side entrance under the colosseum's walls, into the little tent with Viktor and Fleur. At the tent's entrance, looking like he's lost weight and shaking slightly in his place, Ludo Bagman stands, regularly pushing aside the tent flaps and peering outside into the arena.

Harry leans forwards, trying to sneak a peek as to what's waiting for them on the dirt ground, but before he can look the tent flap closes again. Bagman's fat fingers tap constantly against his thighs, and rather than his usual, casual slouch he stands very straight and rigid, his eyes flitting nervously around the room.

Frowning at Bagman, Viktor shoots a glance at Fleur, Cedric and Harry, and Harry gives a shrug of his shoulders. Before any of them can venture a question, however, Amelia Bones strides through the tent flaps, clapping her hands together, her chin raised.

"Now then, Champions!" Bones says, looking between the four of them, and they all give her their full attention. Bagman hovers awkwardly behind her, shaking like a Bludger in its casement, but Bones ignores him. "The task before you is a simple one - simple, though not easy. Platforms will raise from the arena floor, and it is up to you not to drop to the ground - you'll be facing spells and curses designed to throw you down, and there'll be beasts facing you too. The last champion standing will win - Diggory, Potter, I'm afraid you count as a duo here too: if one of you hits the ground, you're both out of the running."

"Is that it?" Harry asks. "A glorified game of don't touch the lava?" Bones looks at him, a slight furrow to her brow betraying her momentary confusion, and then with a serious expression she shakes her head.

"This isn't a game of anything, Mr Potter." Taking a step back, Bones gestures for them to follow her, and the final words she says are a quiet, "Good luck."

The seats in the arena are full of people, and the yells and cheers ring in Harry's ears as a vague amalgamation of loud noise as he and Cedric stand on a chalked out circle in the ground. Viktor stands in another, and Fleur in a third - each of the circles is painted in white on the ground, and they're perhaps five metres in their diameter, but each of them makes the decision to stand in the middle.

Harry looks out around the stands as Bagman makes his announcements, his wand held in a shaking hand to his throat, and he looks at the other students, at various people he recognizes and those he doesn't - some of the wizards and witches wear robes that are fashionable abroad rather than in Britain, but others Harry recognizes from around Diagon Alley or Hogsmeade. He freezes, however, when he sees Professor Sprout sat in the middle of a stand, not because he's surprised she's watching, but because she's sharing a paper bag of sweets with Flitwick.

How could Flitwick have possibly managed to move so fast, from the edge of the woods to the stands?

"Cedric," Harry says. "There's something not quite right here." Cedric frowns, looking at him concernedly, his blue eyes wide.

"What? What do you mean?" Ludo Bagman is looking right at Harry. Harry meets his gaze, and immediately Bagman looks elsewhere, looking up to the sky as he keeps on talking, and Harry shakes his head.

"I don't know. I don't know, but Bagman's done something, there's something not quite right-" He's not able to say anything further. With the sound of crumbling dirt and stone in his ears, the platform they're on begins to rise into the air, along with fifteen or sixteen others, and the sound of running water rings loud in Harry's ears as the base of the arena begins to fill.


	101. Year Four: The Blind Basilisk

Within a few seconds, the brown, sandy ground of the arena is completely covered over, and murky water sloshes around at the base of the colosseum below them; by the time it stops flowing, Harry knows it would be over even Cedric's head. Something to give the champions a softer fall, Harry supposes - or something worse to hide a monster in.

The platform is perhaps forty feet in the air, and looking down, Harry can see the rapt audience filling the stands, their eyes staring up at the four champions in the air above them. The platforms are stable, hovering in place with a few feet between them, and from a distance Harry expects they might look like a rounded, magical staircase, but up close the gaps are far from easy with just a step.

For a few moments, there is silence - even the crowd below are quiet, and Harry and Cedric remain frozen in the centre of their platform, glancing to look up to Krum and down to Fleur on their own.

Harry's grip on his wand is tight as he tries to think, tries to think what Bagman could possibly have done - someone heading into the Forbidden Forest, what could that mean? Flitwick's height-

"Duck!" Cedric yells, and he grabs Harry by the shoulder to pull him down into a crouch as a ball of flame whistles but an inch over his head. It heads straight for Krum, but before it can come to him he snaps out an incantation Harry doesn't recognize and the ball bursts into several dozen shards of burning metal. As they fall down to arena below, they hit the water and hiss with steam.

"They're like Bludgers on fire," Harry says, and thoughts of whatever Bagman's scheme is fade away: he has to focus on the task at hand. "Reducto!" This one shatters right before their faces, and Harry and Cedric both lean away, shielding their faces. The air around them is lit up with streaming flame, and he and Cedric share a look before they begin to move.

The leap between platforms isn't an easy one, but Harry can do it while keeping his balance so long as he braces his legs as he lands, and he keeps on the move. Cedric is doing the same on another hovering shelf in the air, and Harry casts as quickly as he can, throwing spells to blow the Bludgers up, the freeze them, to douse their flames - he tries to Transfigure one into something softer, but the spell doesn't take, and Harry has to drop like a stone to keep it from hitting him right in the chest.

He can hear the others moving, throwing spells and curses into the damn things and jumping from shelf to shelf, but he can't spare a glance in anyone else's direction as he focuses on the singing projectiles in the air. He takes a running jump up to the next platform, where Krum and Cedric are back to back, and he joins them so that all of their shoulders are touching and each of them faces outwards.

"I'm going to try something," Harry yells to be heard over the hiss and squeal of metal and flames in the air, and he feels Krum and Cedric stiffen slightly behind him, in readiness. Harry throws out a magical shield, and as the next Bludger passes through the silver sheen of its sphere-shaped influence in the air, its enchantments are dispelled. It drops to the ground and rolls harmlessly from the side of the platform, and many others do the same, like hail made from steel.

Obviously, of course, that's only the first challenge of the day.

They have to keep moving, after that - gusts of magical wind throw them off balance and tremors hit hard against the shelves they stand on; pixies fly through the air throwing enchanted bombs that are intended to hit them with curses; huge walls of flame unexpectedly fly up between platforms, forcing them to dodge back and nearly fall straight to the arena below.

It all seems so minor, Harry thinks as he's thrown back from a platform and lands on his back on the one below: it winds him, making him drag in desperate, slightly wheezing breaths from his place on his back, and he pulls himself to his feet. They're forced to run one way and then another, but it's all a test of agility, nothing else. And then-

Harry feels like he should hear something as the lowest shelf crumbles underneath Viktor Krum, but he doesn't hear anything at all - Krum had been midway through a stumble, and he falls without being able to throw himself in another direction. Harry hears Fleur cast a spell to slow his progress so that he doesn't hit the water too hard, and then he hears Bagman announce that Krum is out of the running.

Harry sees Krum in his peripheral vision as he swims to the edge of the arena and pulls himself into the stands, and then he has to focus on the task again.

"Our Champions are next to face some monsters!" Bagman says, his voice echoing over the grounds of Hogwarts, but there's an awkward quaver in his voice. Harry freezes in his place, looking down to Bagman. He shares a glance with Cedric, and then he feels his stomach leave him.

He drops to a crouch on the shelf he's on as he flies downwards at speed, and there's an almighty splash of water in every direction as he lands upon the surface of the water. He's still on the platform, and it hasn't fallen away from him, so no one declares that he's out of the competition, but the other platforms are still hovering above him.

"Harry!" Cedric calls. "You alright?"

"Yeah, I'm fine!" Harry yells back. He braces himself, holding his wand outward as he turns slowly in the centre of the platform; the next shelf hovers ten or twelve feet above him, and he'll need Cedric to help him up if he's to climb to one of the higher platforms again.

Above him, he hears a yell from Fleur, and when he glances up, he sees- what is that? A Dementor? But no, no, it's not - her Patronus doesn't cause it to cry out, but makes it almost shrivel as it shrinks away. It looks like a black cloth flying in the sky above him - a Lethifold.

He hears a caw, and something throws Cedric down - something Harry can't see, but that Cedric apparently can. He lets out a sharp hiss of pain as his sleeve is ripped open, and Harry sees the blood drip at the cut on his forearm. The creatures that attack Fleur and Cedric don't come down lower - it's as if they're enchanted to stay above the stands where the audience sits, but if that's the case, why drop a platform down like this?

He conjures a knotted rope, throwing it far above his head to attach it to the nearest platform over his head. He isn't entirely certain of it - he's never conjured rope in order to climb it, and he tests it a few times with his whole weight before he puts his wand between his teeth and grabs hold of the first length of rope before him. He presses his knees tightly together, using them to climb as much as his tightly gripping fists, and he pulls himself upwards. It makes his arms ache terribly, as he isn't used to climbing like this, but he knows full well he won't be able to levitate himself or something similar, and so he keeps himself on the rise.

There's perhaps a foot between him and the ledge of the shelf when a knife flies through the air and slices thickly through the rope. He grabs his wand from his mouth as he falls, but he isn't fast enough to actually cast something, and he lands hard on his chest on the circle of dirt beneath him.

He groans, pulling himself up and wiping the dirt from his chest. He's going to have bruises, Harry knows, but it's the least of his concerns at the moment - he turns his head in the direction the knife had come from, and he sees a group of goblins sat together, a little behind Bagman. Members of the crowd are examining Harry closely, looking at him with concern and perplexity, but Bagman doesn't announce what had happened - he's focusing on Cedric and Fleur.

Harry leans down, grabbing the knife that had been thrown - it's made of silver and as sharp as anything, with a hilt made of some kind of bone. He holds it in his hand, feeling the weight of it, looking at its eight-inch length - this can't possibly be within the rules of the tournament, and why the Hell would they want to do that anyway?

Goblins. Harry glances up to the teachers' stands - barring Snape, who is keeping his eyes only on Harry, the teachers are all focused on Cedric, including Flitwick. Flitwick's lips are moving fast as he talks with Sprout, the two of them leaning right forwards on their benches.

Flitwick is about the height of a goblin.

There's a sudden splintering of wood at the side of the arena, throwing shards of the gate in every direction, and Harry's head isn't the only one to whip in the direction of the wooden explosion. Harry breathes heavily as smoke rises away from the destroyed gate, obscuring his view of what comes through, and when Harry sees it, everything clicks into place.

The goblins, Bagman, the Forbidden Forest, the falling of his platform, and he hears the truth of it ringing in his ears as much as he hears the water rushing away through the break in the arena. "Cedric!" Harry yells, "Cedric, Fleur, just- I need to get up there!" He sees the silhouette of it first, and then it pushes forwards through the grey smoke, the sunshine glinting off its silvery-green scales and the sick, shiny scar-scabs where its eyes ought have been. Black venom oozes from its sharpest teeth as its tongue darts forwards, tasting the air and looking for Harry - and he hears it hiss, _**"Kill..."**_

Harry is hit suddenly by the spell, and he feels awkward and out of place as Fleur fucking Summons him up to the next platform. He grabs hold of her arm as he lands on his feet, nearly stumbling, and she squeezes his arm tightly.

The basilisk slowly moves forwards and into the arena as water streams past it and out onto the grass of the hill outside; Harry can hear the soft sound of its scales rubbing against each other, its hissing, the dart of its tongue - and when its tongue darts out, its head shifts abruptly towards Harry and Fleur.

"'Ow is that?" Fleur whispers. "It can 'ear you?"

"No," Harry says. "No, fuck, no- it can smell me." When Harry looks at it, he sees the scrap of fabric hanging from the side of the gigantic snake's mouth, black fabric - Harry's robe from that morning. Not a prank by the lads, but one of those goblins- "Fleur, get to the next platform - don't stay on the same one as me." She lingers, obviously not wanting to do so, but she reluctantly steps backwards and throws herself up to the next shelf.

The basilisk draws itself up like a cobra, its huge length enabling it to meet Harry's height. The hide of the basilisk is resistant to most spells, Harry knows - any creature born of magic usually has a special resistance, so what is he supposed to do? Harry looks down to the knife in his hand - an enchanted knife, of goblin make.

 _"Is this what you want?"_ Harry hisses. _"You just want to kill me, is that it?"_

 _"You blinded me, lying child!"_ He can hear the rage in the basilisk's voice as it sways, as he looks directly into its face. _"I will kill you. I have wanted for ssso long-"_

 _"What will that do? You'll just die! You're the only basilisk anybody's ever really heard of, and after you kill me, you'll just die! Let me help you, let me get you-"_ He's desperate to say anything that will stop the thing short, make it stop - he doesn't want to kill it, not really, and not just because trying to kill it will no doubt get himself killed.

 _"Blood traitor! Lying infant, monssster!"_ The basilisk hisses back, and it lunges for him. Harry dodges to the side, stopping it from grabbing him between its teeth, and he throws himself at the basilisk's head. He straddles it like he'd straddle a Hippogriff, his knees tightly pressed against the side of the snake's head, and as it rears back, Harry can do nothing - he has the knife in one hand and his wand in the other, with Fleur, Cedric, with everyone in the arena looking down at him, and he does what he has to do.

He brings his left hand down as hard as he can, slamming the length of the blade through the basilisk's skull - ordinarily, he'd never have the strength to do so, but the blade is enchanted to cut through nearly anything, and the hide and bone of the gigantic snake doesn't hold him back.

The basilisk screams, lurching forwards, and Harry drags back the knife and stabs again, and again, and again - when the basilisk falls forwards and Harry tumbles onto the hovering platform, its blood is soaked into the front of his robes and spattered across his arms. The basilisk's great head falls to the floor of the arena with a thunk and a splash, and Harry stays in his place, breathing heavily, clutching the blade in his hand.

There's a yell above him, and this time it's Cedric who casts, "Arresto momentum!" as Fleur falls towards the arena's wet ground, nearly landing on the back of the dead snake - she'd lost her footing in a sudden wind. She lands softly on the ground, and Harry can't process what that means as he sits on his arse, covered in the basilisk's thick, red-black blood, until the arena's stands explode in a cheer.

He and Cedric have won. That's what it means.

Harry doesn't stand up and raise his hands in a cheer, however - he throws himself from the platform to the stands, landing hard and scuffing his knees on the wooden stairs - and he brandishes his new knife at the leader of the goblin contingent, who'd been just about to leave.


	102. Year Four: Betting On Blood

Harry stands very, very still, looking down at the goblin in front of him with his lip curled in a silent snarl and the knife held out in front of him, his wand held loosely in his left hand. His hands aren't so much as trembling, and he stands very stiffly: the goblins mirror him in their unmoving posture, and all of their eyes are on his face. The contingent betray a little bit of fear, but their leader, wearing a blood-red tunic, looks Harry up and down and scoffs.

"You think you could kill us, boy?" The goblin talks loudly, obviously trying to make his voice carry over the rest of the arena, but Harry doesn't flinch or look away.

"I could," Harry says. His voice carries even though it's quiet: his tone is deliberate, and slow. "There's basilisk venom on this knife, now, I bet you - goblin knives absorb that sort of thing, don't they?" Two of the goblins take a trembling step back. "But I don't want to kill you. Let me get this straight, sir. Ludo Bagman owed you money, yeah? Bagman, don't you dare!" Harry snaps, and the man freezes where he'd been heading towards the edge of the arena to leave - in a second, Nymphadora Tonks has him by the scruff of his neck, and drags him back to the judges table. "Ludo owed you money, and you were gonna kill him, but he suggested something really clever. See, during the Quidditch World Cup, two lads bet a lot of money to him that Ireland would win, but Krum would get the Snitch - and he suggested something like that, didn't he? Two Hogwarts Champions, one of them Harry Potter - and Hogwarts would win, but Harry Potter would get killed. That's it, right?"

One of the goblins lunges past him, but Harry kicks him hard in the thigh, sending him tumbling down the wooden stairs and hitting the edge of the stands with a thunk and a soft groan.

Harry leans in towards the goblin in the red tunic, meeting his gaze. The goblin's expression is neutral, and Harry hates him for it - he thinks about the adrenaline that had rushed through him as he'd stabbed the basilisk, and he wants to stab again.

"So you nicked my robe this morning, yeah? Oh, and I bet you've been working on the basilisk in the forest for fucking months - killing all the roosters, feeding it up. That's why the Acromantula left, isn't it - you were making it stronger. And today, you went off to find it, let it smell my robe, let it trace me here, yeah? So it would kill me, and only me. You know, for a betting agency, you don't seem to be all that good at maths - seems to me you miscalculated here." The goblin's expression turns in a second, showing fury, and his wrist shoots out, showing the glint of metal - it's pure luck and adrenaline-enhanced reflexes that let Harry meet the blade with his own. There's a hiss of steel on steel, and he and the goblin stand face-to-face, their respective knives held in a parry.

A few drops of blood fall to the ground - the basilisk's, still clinging to the knife Harry holds.

"Too bad Azkaban's gone," Harry says in a very soft whisper. "You'd fit in well there." He takes a step back as Kingsley Shacklebolt comes forwards, two younger Aurors trailing him on either side - none of them are in uniform, but Harry can tell by the way they look to Shacklebolt and the way they walk that they're magical law enforcement too. Then again, Harry thinks as a bitter aside, as soon as they get to Ministry the goblins probably have to go through the Department of Magical Creatures.

Harry walks very slowly to the edge of the stands, and he jumps to a platform as it lowers to the ground, taking a stand beside Cedric in front of the judges' table. Karkaroff is very pale, looking at the basilisk with an expression of outright horror, though Bones, Dumbledore and Maxine don't seem nearly so perturbed. Bagman is at the edge of the arena, being dragged out by Tonks, and Harry looks after him for a long second.

"Tournament was rigged," Harry says, just as Karkaroff seems to gain back his breath and open his mouth. Karkaroff hesitates - Harry is voicing the thought he'd been about to, and he obviously doesn't know what to do with the concept. "But given, Headmaster Karkaroff, that me and Cedric still managed to survive pretty good odds, given the basilisk and everything-"

"You can hardly prove it's a basilisk - it has no eyes-"

"I saw the eyes get cut out - it's a basilisk. And you just saw me stab it in the head." Karkaroff recoils slightly, staring at Harry with his mouth open and his eyes wide. Usually, Harry would probably be amused to see him like this, but he doesn't feel anything right now, except tired, and angry. He meets Karkaroff's eyes directly, staring right into them, and for a second - just a second - he feels the barest hint of sadistic delight. There's a change in Karkaroff's eyes, a subtle alteration behind them, as Karkaroff's pride is replaced with a twinge of fear. A fear of Harry.

"Nothing about this tournament was fair," Cedric says. "But we still beat the odds." Dumbledore is still quiet for a few, long moments, looking between Cedric, who is covered in dust and his own blood, though he'd managed to heal up his arm, and Harry, whose scarlet coating is mostly from the basilisk.

"I believe they are correct, Madam Bones, Madame Maxine, Headmaster Karkaroff." The two women nod their heads slowly, and even Karkaroff gives a terse, irritable incline of his head.

It is Amelia Bones that stands, places her wand to her throat, and makes the announcement.

* * *

Harry doesn't bother taking his robes off when he initially steps under the spray of the shower. He just stands there under the hot water, letting it soak into the fabric of his robes and send a cascade of swirling, brown-red water onto the tiled floor. His glasses are neatly folded atop his change of clothes, and so as he watches the blood drain away, he sees it blurry on the clean, mint tiles of the bathroom. He rubs half-heartedly at the fabric, trying to stop the stuff from matting into it or coagulating any further, and Merlin knows what the stuff is going to do to his skin, but he just wants the robes to be halfway clean before he puts them aside for the house elves to have a go at.

It's one thing for there to be a little tear or a scuff from a miscast spell, but this is a bit different.

"Harry?" He sighs, putting his head to the wall of the shower, and he looks at the blurry figure in the doorway. There is a bath for each two to three students in the Slytherin dormitories, each with a little half-room for the sake of privacy, but the showers are in a large, open washroom with drains in the centre of the floor and a heated enchantment coming from the walls: there are screens if people are shy about showering, but so few of the Slytherin students choose to use showers that it's really an issue.

"Blaise, I'm kind of busy," Harry says. His finger catches on a rather thick lump, and it falls with a soft plop onto the wet floor. It's white, and hard - a shard of bone. Harry stares down at it, and is very glad he isn't squeamish. "There's basilisk on me." Harry had helped Snape, Sprout and Flitwick carry the basilisk out to one of the open yards outside the greenhouses - Sprout had been about ready to sow a dozen rows of some magical fruit bush Harry is too tired to remember the name of, and it's big enough to house the basilisk's corpse until Snape can dismember it.

Harry has a suspicion as to what his detentions are going to be like for the rest of the Hogwarts term.

"I was worried about you. During the task." Blaise's tone is forcibly dry, but Harry can hear the slight tremor in it. It doesn't make him feel guilty or upset like it might have done even a week ago. It doesn't make him feel anything.

"So was I," Harry says, dropping his outer robe to the side and beginning to unlace the underpiece. His hands are stained a rusty brown, and he wonders if the stuff will ever come off. "But I'm fine now." Blaise takes a step forwards and into the shower room: his clean, dragonhide brogues make a soft splash in the water. Harry is glad his face is too blurry to see.

"Harry, I didn't- I was worried-"

"Blaise," Harry says quietly, and his voice rings in the room. The intimacy of the situation hits Harry hard, the two of them looking at each other across the dimly lit, steamy room, the water soaked into Harry's clothes and wetting his skin. Blaise could join him in the shower, Harry supposes, and they could kiss under the spray like a couple in a French perfume advert. Harry doesn't want that any more. "Piss off." Blaise stares at him, absolutely still in his place. The hem of his robes dips into the water, and although Harry can't really see them clearly, he sees the dark spot that rises up the skirt of Blaise's outer robe. He doesn't say any more - he just turns on his heel and leaves, and Harry tips his head back under the water, soaping his hair and scratching almost painfully hard at his own scalp to ensure he gets out every last piece of the snake that clings to him.

Once Harry stands naked and nearly dry, the shower turned off and a towel messily wrapping up his hair (it doesn't matter what he does to dry it: it'll look the same as always), he picks the goblin's knife up from the window sill. He'd wiped off the blood with a clean cloth, and he fingers the bone handle, feeling the grip dug into the bone - it might be made for goblins, but it fits Harry's hand perfectly. Just like the knife he'd bought on a whim in Hogsmeade, he finds he likes the feel of it in his palm, its weight.

Most wizards never use real weapons, these days, not unless they conjure them during a duel.

He sets the blade at his hip for the time being, held by a stupid holster for his wand someone had bought him one Christmas - Alastor Moody, Harry thinks, who has a weird aversion to just putting a wand in a pocket - and lets it be hidden by the fabric of his outer robe.

* * *

"A party in Hogsmeade tonight," McGonagall says, standing straight. Harry frowns slightly, but she goes on to say, "Aurors are already remaining in Hogsmeade for the time being, and everyone will remain within the Three Broomsticks, which Madam Rosmerta has agreed to make private for the occasion - your parents have assented, Mr Malfoy, Messrs Weasley, and Mr Black has assented for you, Mr Potter, and assured Professor Dumbledore he will keep a particular watch over Ms Granger."

"This is with Professor Dumbledore's approval, then?" Hermione asks, and McGonagall's lip twitches.

"He believes you deserve some time to celebrate," she says, and Harry can't help but smile. Time to celebrate sounds... Good. Even if they won't be able to sneak that Firewhiskey for the time being. They make an agreement to meet in the entrance hall in twenty minutes or so, where they'll walk into town with Cedric, Fleur, Viktor and some of the professors, but rather than head down to his dormitory to get changed again, Harry meanders through the dungeon corridors and towards Snape's office.

Uncharacteristically, his door is slightly ajar, and Harry realizes why when he lingers in the doorway to look in - Snape has a Bubblehead charm over his head and a ward around his cauldron, working with something that appears rather toxic, and had someone knocked he'd never have heard. His black eyes shift from his work, and he holds up his left hand in a silent gesture for Harry to wait.

It's fascinating, watching him work. Harry wishes he understood potions as well as he understood charms or defensive magic - Snape works with a natural skill, and Harry's sure it comes from more than just years of practice. Snape seems to understand ingredients and the way they come together in the same way Neville Longbottom understands plants, and he can't help but envy it a little. Snape tips a vial of something red slowly into the softly smoking cauldron, and the smoke begins to tinge green. Snape's stirs the mixture three times anti-clockwise, and immediately, the smoke disappears. A soft glow emanates from the cauldron, now, and Snape leans back, banishing both the Bubblehead charm around his head and the ward around his cauldron with two flicks of his wand.

"Pass me that tray of flasks, Potter," Snape orders, and Harry takes the silver tray carefully, setting it down on the work surface beside the cauldron. Snape doesn't need a funnel: he tips the cauldron with the most delicate of charms, and it doesn't dare spill a drop as he fills the three, oblong flasks, each engraved with the words HOGWARTS INFIRMARY. "What potion do you suspect this is?"

"It's an antidote for Venomous Tentacula bites. That's what the red stuff is - juices from one of their leaves." Snape looks at him in a way that Harry can't really define - he feels like he's being appraised, somehow, and then Snape gives a small inclination of his head. He doesn't smile, and his thin lips don't even twitch, but something changes for a second in his eyes, and Harry feels the barest hint of approval.

"Three points to Slytherin," Snape says, delicately filling the final flask, and then he stoppers the three of them. "What do you want?"

"Professor McGonagall says there's a party in Hogsmeade tonight." Snape examines him, his dark eyebrows shifting slightly. The _and?_ is silent, and yet completely understood. "I wanted to ask permission to go, sir. You said I had to ask if I wanted to leave the castle." Snape's laugh is short and grim, but it seems genuine, and as he turns to return ingredients to their shelves, he shakes his head slightly.

"Yes, Potter, you may. I have no wish to engage in the two-step the Headmaster will draw me into if I refuse."

"Aren't you going to come, sir?" Snape turns his head, glancing at Harry as if he's worried Harry's become somehow unhinged.

"No." The response is emphatic, and Harry doesn't bother to say anything in argument or response. He says a polite thank you, steps from his head of house's office, and draws the door shut behind him.

* * *

Lindon and Cecilia are dancing, and Harry doesn't think he's ever seen a couple so good. The music coming from the gramophone in the corner is bright, fast and brassy, and the two of them swing one way and then the other in perfect sync, keeping step with each other with their chests together, and they keep laughing into each other's mouths as they keep up their rhythm. Others are dancing, too - Sirius is dancing with Madam Rosmerta, and Lucius and Narcissa are swaying slightly together, his hands upon her hips and her arms around his neck.

It's warm inside the Three Broomsticks, but not unbearably so, and when Hermione gestures for Harry to get up, he reluctantly does so, and he lets her lead him in a cha cha. Draco, who had moved in the hope Hermione was inviting him, tries to sit down again, but Fred already has hold of his hands, and forces him into the same steps until Draco is laughing as much as he is. When the song finally winds down and becomes something slower, Narcissa and Lucius keep dancing, and Ted and Dromeda Tonks dance together, occasionally stepping on each other's feet - Harry can't actually tell whether it's accidental or on purpose.

He smiles as he orders another Butterbeer from the bar, sipping at it and allowing it to fill him with the pleasant, cheery warmth it's known for.

It's busy in the pub - he sees members of the Order of the Phoenix dotted around, but also Aurors, Ministry workers, and some of the handlers who'd worked with the Triwizard Tournament, as well as various members of the Durmstrang and Beauxbatons contingents. It's a genuinely celebratory atmosphere, and even Igor Karkaroff seems to be having a halfway good time, talking with a pretty woman from the Department of International Magical Cooperation.

"So, Harry," Lindon says quietly. There's a red tinge in his pale cheeks, and Harry wonders how much he's had to drink - the man is swaying ever so slightly. "Are you glad?"

"Yeah," Harry says, glancing over to Cedric, who is dancing with Cho Chang. The two thousand Galleon prize had been split between the two of them, and Harry has already put the entirety of his half into the Weasleys Wizard Wheezes account. He glances back to Lindon, and he smiles a little. "Yeah, I am. I'm tired, obviously, but I'm just glad it's all done with."

"Yes, well, we'll see what the Ministry do with those goblins. Bagman will undoubtedly be imprisoned somewhere or other, but goblins are always a tricky subject - the Ministry will want to be strict, though. They hate betting shops so terribly, and they've been trying to cut them away for years, so they might well put in some legislation as to betting on blood." Lindon chuckles to himself, taking a sip of his very fruity-looking cocktail. "The world ever changes, young man."

"Yeah, I guess so," Harry says. "How much do you think it's going to change in the next year?" Lindon glances to him, his jolly expression faltering some. He reaches out, putting a tremulous left hand on Harry's shoulder, and he meets his gaze seriously.

"Harry," Lindon murmurs, and Harry can barely hear him over the chatter of the crowd. "I've no doubt much will change, with the Dark Lord, with Lockhart, with your schooling, with the world at large... Yet I assure you, one thing will remain quite steadfast: our loyalty to you, young man." It takes Harry by surprise, but then he smiles, and he pulls Lindon into a short hug before he goes to join Hermione and the twins again.

He thinks about what Lindon says the entire night, however, and when they all trail back up to the castle, he feels more content than he has in a long while.


	103. Year Four: Epilogue

Lucius smiles to himself as he moves through the pleasantly warm streets of Hogsmeade. The sun had gone down some time ago, but it's not truly so dark - the street lamps are all lit, and from over the mountains comes a very pleasant, violet glow that still lingers from the sunset. He is of good mood: Narcissa had returned home with Andromeda earlier in the evening, but he had stayed a little longer in the Three Broomsticks, embroiled as he had been in nonsense conversation with some of the Ministry employees.

How he has missed it, that light patter that is so constant amongst Ministry men and women, that almost political talk. They'd played a fast-paced poker game, and Lucius had enjoyed the company of Sirius Black of all people. He is of exceedingly good mood, even now, and he will take only a short walk through the woods before he turns to Apparate home.

Strange, he muses, how Grimmauld Place has become home to him - it is no Malfoy Manor, of course, and it has numerous flaws, but he feels so close to Narcissa there, and having people in and out of the place... Lucius should never admit it to anyone barring his dear and devoted wife, but he rather enjoys the hectic nature of it. It is what he might have felt, he thinks, had he and Narcissa ever had further children than Draco - but no, it is best he not think on that.

Lucius' head snaps abruptly to the side at a harsh, high, gurgling sound from a clearing to his left, and he frowns. Under the cover of the tree canopy, the green umbrella above him blocks out some of the summer evening light, and he is forced to squint through shadows to get a hint of whatever might be there. "Hello?" Lucius calls, and he steps away from the wooded path, into the treeline and into the clearing. He knows it well - once upon a time, he and Narcissa had taken promenades through this very wood, and in this clearing he would sit with her head upon his lap, and he would read to her: it is a scene they play out in the comfort of their library twice weekly, even twenty years later.

"Lucius," says a soft, hissing voice, and Lucius feels his blood run cold as the mark in his arm - so carefully bandaged, and yet so stupidly forgotten - tugs hard at him. A wand that is not his own raises, shedding light over the scene, and Lucius sees the figure of a young lady from the Ministry leaning against a tree, the glaze in her eyes betraying the Imperius curse, and he sees the bloodied figure on the ground. Igor Karkaroff is paler than he ever has been, his throat ripped away by teeth, and Lucius stumbles back, raising his wand as fast as he can, but he has no hope, and he knows it.

There are Death Eaters on his every side, and the one with the wand-

"Bartemius?" Lucius hears himself whisper, and the man cackles in that terrifying way he'd done at school. He thinks of Draco, of Narcissa, of the Order, of young Harry Potter.

And then a cloaked figure throws itself forwards, and his scream is torn away by a mouth more snake than wizard. The magic about him rings in his ears, electrifies his skin even as he ceases to feel sensation, as he feels so cold despite the summer warmth: he feels the pull of his Dark Mark through his entire body, draining away with his very lifeblood, and his eyes cease to see, he realizes what has happened, what was always destined to happen to him when he took the Mark in the first place.

It is the last of Lucius Malfoy's many regrets that he ever thinks to consider.


	104. Year Five: The Fire Burning

Everyone around the graveyard is very, very still. It's an uncomfortably beautiful place, filled with shining marble stones and black-shining mortuaries. It isn't like most graveyards, where the stones inevitably lose their sheen or roots and leaves grow over the the engravings of names and dates - this cemetery shines is alive with old, old magic, and Harry had felt it ring through him as soon as he had crossed over the threshold and into garden.

Because it is a garden, really - it doesn't feel like a graveyard centred around a Muggle church, but a garden that just happens to hold dead people in it. There are black roses and white lilies growing in the hedges, as well as plump, red berries and thick, leafy brambles and assorted hedgerow plants. Between every single grave plot is a bed of well-kept flowers, both magical and mundane, and over each mound grow even more of them.

Lucius Malfoy has been buried maybe five minutes, and already the flowers are moving visibly to blanket the turned earth in the patchwork colour of their different petals, reflecting against the pearly-white colour of Lucius' grave stone. LUCIUS MALFOY, it decrees in a flowing script, 6TH DECEMBER 1954 - 9TH JUNE 1994. LOVED AS A FATHER, AS A HUSBAND, AS A PILLAR OF THE COMMUNITY.

Harry knows a lot of people who would dispute the last, but he knows Lucius would have wanted it there - probably stipulated in a document twenty years ago that he wanted that on his gravestone. He looks from the creeping carpet of flowers around at the other mourners. Narcissa is dressed in morning, wearing a high-collared, black dress robe with black gemstones about the neck, and she wears a light black veil over the face and her blonde hair; Draco is wearing traditional robes with so many buttons on they remind Harry of Snape's; Snape himself stands beside Narcissa and, uncharacteristically, allows her to clutch at his arm, even as she cradles Draco with her other. Anyone would think Snape and Lucius had been brothers.

The others around Harry mostly knows - members of the Order, workers from the Ministry. Arthur and Molly stand together in shabby, black robes that they probably haven't worn since the end of the war, and the both of them are as pale as sheets underneath their freckles - Molly's eyes are even red from crying, and her cheeks are slightly shiny from lingering tears. Hermione stands with some of the Slytherins, with Blaise, Pansy, Daphne, but they all follow Hermione's lead and leave Harry to stand on his own, just in front of Sirius and Remus.

A man from the Ministry Harry doesn't remember the name of is talking, but all of the words blend together for him and he finds he can't take any of them in through the haze that weighs him down. He hasn't cried yet: he doesn't think it's set in yet. He and Draco had dropped into their beds laughing together, and the next morning, Snape had woken them up, lingering in their dormitory doorway, watching them. He'd closed the door very slowly behind him, and both Harry and Draco had sat stark upright in their beds, forgetting to be embarrassed about their night clothes or the unkempt state of their hair, and they'd stared at him. Harry had never seen him look as he did then, with visible circles under his eyes, with a bitten-down bruise at the side of his lower lip, so obviously overwrought, and he'd said very quietly, "This morning, Aurors were called into Hogsmeade. There were murders last night, in the village..."

When Harry had looked out of the window on the first floor later that morning, the Dark Mark had still been stark green above town in the sky.

"In ancient times, we often burned our dead, and although Lucius now lies buried beneath us, this flame represents his impact upon us all - warm, and bright, and illuminating." It's Narcissa who flicks her wand in the direction of the hovering, white basin, and it bursts into flames. A sweet, pleasant scent comes up from the incense mingled in with the wood, and Harry stares at the burning wood. They all do, all of the mourners in a circle now, and Narcissa stands with her arms wrapped tightly around Draco - Harry can almost read his wish to be taller, just to be able to comfort his mother better, on his face. Harry's gaze flits to Snape, and he sees in Snape's black, black eyes the reflection of the burning fire.

Harry goes home a few days after the funeral. Excused from his final exams, he has no desire at all to be in the castle, and he spends several days alone in his bedroom, hearing Remus or Sirius pace the halls, hearing them speaking quietly together, and hearing the loud, long silences between them even though he knows the both of them are there. They don't knock or try to disturb him in any way, and Remus doesn't come to try to comfort him like he did after Barty Crouch's death. They just let him alone, and Harry is grateful.

He can't stop thinking about it.

How did they kill him? Was it the Killing Curse, or was it something else? Dark magic, a Cutting Curse, even something Muggle - a knife, an axe, or something. Harry hates that he keeps thinking about Lucius Malfoy dead, and that he can't visualize it properly in his mind: what did Lucius look like once he was dead? Was there blood? Were his eyes open? How did he lie on the ground - stiff, or splayed out in blood?

On the fourth day, Harry walks into the kitchen at ten in the morning, and he sits across from Remus at the table. Remus sips at black, black coffee, and perversely he looks quite well-rested - it's three weeks until the full moon, true, but they've all been sleeping a lot, the past few days.

Sirius never even asked if Harry wanted to go back to Grimmauld Place. They all just Flooed straight back to Sirius' flat.

"They won't tell you either, will they?" Harry asks, and as he does he reaches back for a mug from the counter, pouring himself coffee from the antique cafetière that lightly steams on its plate on the table. It's one of the only nice things Remus seems to own, and usually Harry knows Remus would stop him, but he doesn't today. Harry takes a sip of the coffee, finds it rich, bitter, fragrant. He's surprised to find that he actually likes it, and he takes another sip. The mug radiates a wonderful warmth into the palms of his hands and into his fingers: his position mirrors Remus', the way he cradles the black mug in his hands. "What he looked like?"

"No," Remus says softly. "Severus saw. He wouldn't allow Narcissa to identify his body, you know - I thought that quite noble of him. When he came back to the house, there was blood on the cuffs of his robe." Harry's nose is buried in the mug, and whenever he takes in a breath he breathes in the scent of the expensive coffee Sirius buys for the flat, even though Remus tells him not to. Remus speaks in a monotone, his hoarse, husky voice betraying barely any emotion at all, but his eyes are drowned in sorrow.

"Where's Sirius?" Harry asks. He feels like he should be hungry, given that he's eaten nothing but a few biscuits and pieces of candy in the past three days, but he isn't.

"In bed," Remus says softly. His grip on his mug tightens slightly, and his shoulders raise - he's waiting to see if Harry is going to ask why they're sharing Sirius' bedroom now, why the guest bedroom is made up like a guest bedroom again, why Sirius lies in corners of the house wearing Remus' jumpers, and why when he ran out for milk the morning before last, Remus didn't even notice he was wearing Sirius' coat instead of his own.

"I'm going to go and see Narcissa today," Harry says. A fraction of the tension fades away from Remus' shoulders, and his eyes soften. "She shouldn't be alone right now, and Draco and Snape have classes- I know Dromeda will be there, and, God, I bet Narcissa wants to murder Mrs Weasley by now..." Remus' laugh is soft, pained. He nods his head, and he and Remus drink from their steaming mugs at the same time.

Narcissa is standing in the kitchen when Harry arrives at Grimmauld Place. The entire house is empty thanks to the early hour of the morning, and although she hears him come in, she doesn't look back at him. She just stands there, her hands clasped loosely before her stomach, her head held high and her aristocratic chin defiantly pointed forwards. Harry moves forwards, slowly, and he stands beside her. He follows her gaze from one cupboard to another, and then he says, "Narcissa, you should sit down." It's not an order - Narcissa Malfoy isn't the sort of woman who's ever taken orders from anybody, Harry expects, and she looks at him, her face a marble mask.

"Hello, Harry," she says softly. Her voice is hoarse from crying, and she takes a step forwards, settling herself down on one of the stools at the island in the middle of the kitchen, and Harry moves across the room, taking a broad, flat pan from the cupboard. He sees Narcissa's eyes widen just a fraction as he sets the pancake pan on the hob, flicking on the gas with a wave of his wand.

"Lucius and I, when we wrote to each other in the beginning, used to exchange recipes," Harry murmurs. "I didn't know anything about anything, and I know he wanted to be kind. The first one he sent me, when I mentioned that at home, I used to do a lot of cooking, was for pancakes without egg or milk in them. He used to say there were your favourite." He sees the change in Narcissa's features, sees the twitch in her cheeks and her mouth, but she doesn't cry. She just looks at him, stares at him, and then she smiles. He gets the feeling this is the first time she has smiled since she heard the news, but it's nonetheless absolutely beatific. "I'll bring you the recipe."

"I have it copied down forty times or more," Narcissa says. Even on the stool, she's the image of Pureblood elegance, straight-backed and with her ankles crossed beneath her. "I can no more cook than I can fly without a broomstick, Harry, though I should imagine the latter would engender less catastrophic results." She watches him as he takes out a whisk for the pancake mix - he's watched Lucius cook in this kitchen before, and he knows where everything is as well as he does in Sirius' kitchen - and he works as best he can, his hands shaking slightly. He doesn't know why it strikes him to do this. Lucius, in the beginning, hadn't been too forthcoming in his letters, but what Harry had found would really make him talk - or, well, write - would be if he started talking about Narcissa, and even though he never really revealed that much, he'd said that Narcissa considered the pancakes the perfect comfort food.

Harry's made them before - he likes them. He guesses Narcissa could do with any comfort right now.

He cooks in silence, with nothing but the sound of sizzling mixture in the pan, and when he finally sets the plate in front of Narcissa, she smiles at it for a few moments. The pancakes can't possibly look like they do when Lucius had done them - they're not perfect circles or stacked in some magical tower, but Narcissa slips from the stool, reaches for Harry, and pulls him into a very slow hug. She wraps her arms tightly around him, pulling him close and burying her nose against the top of his head, cupping his hair, and he lets her.

Narcissa has hugged him before, but never has she hugged him like this, like she needs to, like he's actually offering her some comfort rather than the other way around.

"I'm sorry, Narcissa," Harry says when he draws away, looking at her perfect, marble features - he couldn't hope to guess her age if he didn't already know she was approaching fifty, usually, but she looks aged beyond her years, this week. She just looks exhausted by the world. "I was thinking about stuff I could say to you, but it was all just platitudes, really, and I bet you've heard enough this week." Narcissa's lip twitches, and she gives a nod of her head, letting the side of her fork cut through a pancake before her, messily shaped but still perfectly cooked.

"Molly Weasley is doing her best to keep at my side - while she might be correct in measuring that I perhaps ought not be alone, she neglects to realize I should rather that than her company." Narcissa shakes her head slightly, taking a small bite: her eyes closed, and Harry sees her throat move as she swallows, sees something pass over her face - a shadow of thought, memory, nostalgia. Her smile is soft, dreamy, and she murmurs, "No doubt he is glad that it was him and not I - in a similar position, he might have murdered three or four of his would-be comforters."

"I bet," Harry says quietly. They settle into soft conversation - Narcissa talks about Lucius, about what he used to wear, how he'd act, at a funeral: she doesn't talk as if he isn't dead, exactly, but there's something almost whimsical about it. Hopeful, dreamy - he's never heard Narcissa like this, but he guesses she needs it for the time being, and when Dromeda lets herself into Grimmauld Place and comes into the kitchen, she beams to see Harry. Dromeda looks tired, the heavy lids under her eyes even darker than usual and making her similarity to Bellatrix Lestrange a little more pronounced, but Narcissa doesn't notice as Dromeda leans in, pressing a kiss to her sister's temple and patting her cheek.

"I'll leave you guys," Harry says, smiling at Narcissa, and when he takes a step out into the corridor, Andromeda follows him. She waits until the door closes softly behind them, with a click, and then she looks at Harry seriously. She's still in her Healer's uniform, the front of her robes a little more open than is strictly proper, and when she smiles, it's like her whole face softens. He wonders how long she'll be with Narcissa - probably an hour or so, however long she can stretch her lunch break.

"They said you're back at home now, earlier than the rest of the kids. It's good of you to see Narcissa - all of us, except Molly, have work to do, and- well, Molly and Cissy aren't the best of friends." Dromeda seems to hesitate for a few moments, frowning at Harry with a maternal concern, and then she says, "You keep safe, Harry."

"I will," Harry says. He doesn't make a promise - for some reason, he feels he doesn't want to. "I'll be fine, Drom. I'm just going to Floo back now."

"Alright," Drom says, giving a small nod of her head, and he waits until she goes back into the kitchen. He looks into the living room, where an enchanted rug assiduously takes care of any spare soot that comes out of the fireplace with those that Floo, and then he looks to the front door. He walks slowly forwards, glancing down at himself as he takes his cloak from the rack in the hall - he'd just thrown on some trousers, a collared shirt and one of his jumpers from Molly that morning, putting his cloak overtop.

He thinks about it for a moment or two, and then he goes back to the fireplace in the front room, slipping his green, summer cloak into his bag and then he throws some of the green powder into the fireplace. Saying the words in a clear, enunciated tone, he declares, "Gringotts Bank, Diagon Alley," and steps into the flames.

Gringotts Bank isn't busy. In an hour or so, when it picks up for the usual lunch hour, there'll probably be people everywhere, but for the time being, the majority of the tellers are just getting on with paperwork and the like at their desks. "Excuse me," Harry says politely, stepping up to one of the desks as he brushes some soot off his shoulder, and the goblin looks at him seriously over his yellow-tinted spectacles. "Could I exchange some Galleons for Muggle British Sterling, please? I'm not sure about the exchange rate, so if I could just have twenty?" The goblin gives a nod of his head, taking Harry's purse and counting out a Galleon and a small pile of Sickles before handing it back, and then he hands over two crisp, ten pound notes.

Harry never really held any Muggle money when he was a child, but it still fills him with a strange nostalgia, seeing the Queen staring out at him from the paper, but he's stopped short when he turns one of the notes over and doesn't see Florence Nightingale. He frowns, glancing to the teller, but before he can open his mouth, the goblin says, "They changed two years back - that's Charles Dickens. He was a Muggle writer. They change the figures on their currency often."

"Right," Harry says, slightly awkwardly, and he makes his way towards the fireplaces again, murmuring quietly - but clearly - his destination. As soon as he steps into the flat, he listens for Sirius and Remus - he hears a record playing, a Boney M. album, that muffled the sound of his coming in through the Floo, so he doesn't bother to talk to them. He just slips towards the front door and closes the door quietly behind him. He waits for a second on the doorstep, steeling himself - no one has actually gave him a lecture about not going anywhere on his own the past week, simply because everyone's been so focused on any grief he might be feeling, but he knows it's implicit in a lot of what the adults in his life have been saying, and he knows being safe is important, but...

It's Muggle London.

No one's going to recognize him, and it's not as if Death Eaters routinely walk the streets the Muggles tread.

Harry puts his hands in his pockets, adjusting his satchel on his shoulder, and he begins to walk. Sirius' flat is only fifteen minutes from the Leaky Cauldron, but Harry walks in the opposite direction, heading into the centre of town. Lunchtime on a weekday in the centre of London is busy, and when passing through groups of people moving on their break or on shopping trips he has to dodge through or past. He ends up on the high street soon enough, though, and he makes his way down the street, glancing at the different shops. There aren't many people his age, and he notices it when he slips into an amusement arcade on a side street - the place is almost empty, but for a couple in their twenties, both wearing loose-fitting jumpers and bottleglass spectacles who are getting very competitive over a game of air hockey.

"Shouldn't you be in school, lad?" asks a technician in a black polo shirt, frowning at him, and Harry shakes his head.

"Private school, mate. Let out early." The technician takes this immediately, even offering Harry a little grin, and he takes a few steps away, slipping behind a desk with a glass front around it. He changes one of Harry's ten pound notes for coins, and Harry takes some of the fifty pence pieces, taking a try at some of the arcade games. But for the very occasional go on Dudley's games consoles at home, he's never played any video games at all, and the ridiculous freedom of the place hits him hard. There are some pool, snooker and air hockey tables, and then there are a whole load of different arcade machines, grabber machines and the like. Over a half wall at the end of the room are some gambling machines, but Harry has no interest in them anyway.

He takes a fifty pence piece and tries his hand at a huge, black machine labelled with NAMCO on the side, and he recognizes it as something Dudley's played on his computer. He's never really understood the appeal behind videogames, as all he's never experienced of them has been Dudley playing them and then getting angry at either the game or whoever he was playing with, depending on which was most accessible - he's seen Dudley slam his fist through games consoles and snap the discs or cartridges over his knee, but playing them isn't actually stressful or upsetting.

To Harry's utter surprise, he enjoys them.

He plays Pacman, initially, enjoying the simplicity of the game and its focus on reflexes and thinking quickly, and then he plays the other games - games where you shoot at things or fight hand to hand with people, games that are based around puzzles or problem-solving, and he even has a go at a game called DanceMaster, which is actually surprisingly difficult. He likes it, though: he has to stand straight in the middle of the floor and move his feet to hit four arrows, doing it in time with the animation on the screen, and he doesn't just enjoy it - he loves it.

The time he's spent in the amusement arcade, he's always had everything in the back of his head - Lucius dying, what Remus and Sirius are going to say when he gets back, the war, Death Eaters, Voldemort, how the people still at Hogwarts must still be feeling. It had been worse when he'd been playing the shooting games, watching the cartoonish, ridiculous sprays of animated blood explode into the air or dash the floors and walls, and he hated that he'd known the blood was the wrong colour or spattered the wrong way, hated wondering if it had come off Lucius like this or like that when Voldemort had killed him.

But with this? With this stupid DanceMaster?

He doesn't think about anything until the level ends.

It reminds him of the Quidditch games he's played with the Weasleys, not because of the actual process - he steps left, right, left, right, forwards, back, right, right, left, left, and doing this on a broom would throw him hard into the wall of the castle - but because he gets so into it, so focused on the actual game that he forgets about everything. Not just about the war and the people in his life, but about the arcade around him, about what he's wearing - he forgets absolutely everything in his life except the game in front of him, and when he finally takes enough steps wrong that the GAME OVER screen comes up, he's laughing to himself and leaning back against the brace at the back of the machine.

"Oi!" Harry glances back from the machine - his shirt has come untucked from his trousers, and it sticks loosely out from under the hem of the jumper, which has ridden up a little, and he sees the three school boys. They're his age or a little older, maybe, still in their school uniforms of black jumpers, black trousers, blue shirts and striped ties - would he have worn a uniform like that, Harry wonders, if he'd ended up going to Stonewall High? No, he remembers - he'd be wearing those badly dyed pieces of elephant skin he'd seen Aunt Petunia preparing before he'd received his Hogwarts letter. They look smart, though, he thinks, even though their trousers are creased and the knots of their ties are too big and the tails too short: he's kind of missed the Muggle look. "Are you gay or something?"

It's the one in the middle that talks - he's shorter than his two friends, with dirty blond hair and a rather pointy nose, with tanned features and green-flecked brown eyes. His arms are crossed over his chest, and his friends stand behind each of his shoulders as if they're henchmen. The three of them remind Harry of Draco, Crabbe and Goyle for a moment, and he almost laughs before he remembers about Lucius. Guilt hits him, but only lingers for a moment or two.

"Yeah," Harry replies easily, leaning on the brace, casually. He's sweated a little bit, but the activity has made his hair fluff up all around his head, and he can't help but wonder how he looks right now. "No offence though, mate, but I'm not looking for a boyfriend right now." The boy recoils, his eyes widening, and his friends laugh, shoving him and each other playfully, and immediately the similarity to Draco is gone - the shorter boy turns to his friends, laughing with them, before he looks back to Harry.

"You think you're funny?" he asks. There's no undercurrent of threat or obnoxiousness or unpleasantness like there would be with Draco in this situation. This guy is less arrogant, Harry guesses, or maybe just a little more down to earth.

"Yeah," Harry answers, shrugging his shoulders. "Sure." The three of them sort of stare at him, lead by the one in the middle, and then they walk past him, gathering around the tallest one on one of the shooting games, and Harry takes the time now to glance around the room. There are school children all around now, both closer to his age and much younger, gathered around games or chatting in the corners. Most of them have drinks or are eating bits of food from the greasy spoon next door, and he'd not noticed any of them coming in.

He grins a little, putting his hands in his pockets and making his way outside. He feels the sun on his face, and then he steps into the little café, grabbing for himself a burger and eating it quickly, but when he slips to the bathroom before walking home, he hesitates. There's a cigarette machine in the corridor that leads to the toilets, and he doesn't know why it strikes him so hard, the thought of getting a packet of cigarettes, but it does.

He takes a few pound coins, drops them into the machine, and lets it vend a packet of Silk Cut - Aunt Petunia never smoked, of course not, never, but occasionally he'd find an empty packet in the bin, and she always had Silk Cut. He drops the packet in his back pocket, beside his wand, and forgets about them for the time being.

"Do you have any idea how irresponsible that was? We were terrified, Harry! You'd left Narcissa's before twelve, and then disappeared from the face of the earth! You could have died, could have been kidnapped, could have- They want you dead. Don't you understand that?" Remus is pale-faced and furious, his hair sticking up in every direction, but none of the words really hit him. He stands up straight, disaffected, with his hads in his pockets. "Well? Aren't you- for fuck's sake, Harry, aren't you going to say anything?"

"People want me dead. I get it. I've got it for the past five years. It's not new. Lucius is dead - that's all that's different." Remus stares at him, seemingly floored by the response, and Harry meets his gaze levelly. "I didn't take a three day cruise, Remus: I took an afternoon off, on my own, safely."

"Where did you go?" Remus asks. Harry shrugs his shoulders. "You're not going to tell me that?" The incredulity in Remus' voice borders on hysterical, and Harry doesn't look away, doesn't shake or turn away from it - Remus looks stressed and upset, and that's bad, but Harry only feels a little bit of guilt. He'd wanted to have that afternoon in the arcade, and he'd taken it - and it had harmed absolutely nobody, with the potential to harm only Harry himself.

"Did you decide to give me the lecture yourself, or did Sirius ask you to?"

"How in the Hell can you-"

"Mix of both?"

"Get out." Harry knew Remus would snap eventually - he's been sleeping well the past few days, but he's not actually any less stressed, and although he's a patient man about some things, he isn't when it comes to stuff he takes this seriously. When it comes to Sirius or Harry being safe, he isn't likely to remain patient for long, and that's what Harry had been counting on.

"All I wanted," Harry responds, and he walks past Remus and into his room, his door shutting with a click behind him. He can hear the ringing silence from outside, and he sees Remus in his mind's eye, stock still and absolutely full of rage where he stands in the middle of the hall. Harry pulls his jumper over his head, throwing it aside and walking slowly into his room, dropping his bag on the floor beside his bed. Taking his wand from his back pocket, he takes a glass bowl from his chest of drawers, tipping out the scattered badges on the dresser surface. The Transfiguration isn't too difficult - he just makes the bowl flatter and wider, and it almost looks like a proper ashtray. He grins to himself, taking out the packet of cigarettes, and he flicks out one of them.

He holds it in his hand, examining the difference between the tan line of the cigarette's base and the white paper of its length, and he experiments with the ways to hold it, trying to decide what feels most natural. Then he decides he doesn't care, and flicks an Incendio at the cigarette's end, glad to live in a magical household, where the Trace can't actually know who it is casting spells.

He watches the orange glow around the cigarette's end with a kind of detached interest. The colour reminds him of the last embers of a fire, and it comforts him, on some level: he drops on his back, draws the cigarette to his mouth, and puts his lips to the base of the filter before he inhales. Harry does it slowly, and the taste is strange, more bitter than he'd expected, but he lets it fill his mouth and touch to the back of his throat. It hurts a little bit, not exactly stinging the walls of his throat, and when he exhales, he lies for a few still moments on the bed, staring up at the green canopy above him.

He glances to the cigarette in his hand, examining it thoughtfully, and then he brings it to his mouth again.

The second time, he coughs so hard he nearly drops the fag, and only narrowly escapes setting his bed on fire.

Harry makes bacon sandwiches for tea. He doesn't have the appetite for anything else, so he just makes himself a plate and then puts two aside for Remus and Sirius. They're in the living room, talking quietly, the sound muffled, and when Harry goes in, he's quiet about it, hovering in the doorway. Remus has his long legs awkwardly beneath him on the sofa, holding a half-full wine glass in his hand, and Sirius is sprawled across the other side with his feet in Remus' lap, his glass on the table beside the bottle of wine. Both of them look solemn, and Harry has no wish to sit and talk with them. He goes forwards, putting a plate of sandwiches on the table, and Remus frowns as he looks from the plate to Harry.

"Figured I'd do them as I did mine. Night," is all Harry says, and he goes to his bedroom, kicking the door shut behind him. He flicks on the radio, wanting something to distract him, but there's nothing on that's actually interesting - he ends up just leaving it on a radio show about Herbology, which he almost entirely ignores. When that fades into the WWN news bulletin, he glances towards it.

"And representatives of Buttoned Betting, the popular goblin-run bookmakers, were seen in the courts before the Wizengamot early this afternoon. Relations were strained, and many called for exile of those goblins involved on the Triwizard Tournament upset to the new wizarding prison, a call unheard of since 1966, when three goblin terrorists were sentenced to be Kissed, which was highly criticized at the time by the goblin government. As the prison is as-yet unnamed and unbuilt, the six primary suspects in the matter are being held in the Ministry of Magic, and a statement through the Goblin Liasion Office labelled it as "irredeemable" on the part of the Ministry." Harry sighs, turning onto his front and pressing his face into the bedsheets. "Ludo Bagman is scheduled to be in court on the Thursday of this week."

"Fucking great," Harry mutters to the unnecessarily brisk voice of the witch on the radio.

"This series of court appearances is part of a Ministry initiative to crack down on what Dolores Umbridge, head of the Betting And Gambling Commission, declares to be "an unthinkable epidemic, where betting on blood has become the accepted normality", and the Minister for Magic has expressed his support for tighter constrictions upon gambling in Wizarding Britain."

Harry has no idea if that's exactly a work of genius, given that most of the betting shops are run by goblins, but he Cornelius Fudge has never struck him as a particularly intelligent man, and the only heart he seems to have is for people liking him and cronying up to him.

He glances to the window, seeing the night closing in - with the summer moving on, the days are growing longer, and Harry actually hates how long the days are. In Grimmauld Place last summer, there'd been people bustling back and forth constantly, and now Harry knows no one he knows is bustling anywhere. Without something keeping him occupied, he just keeps thinking about Lucius dead, Lucius dying, and what that means - Voldemort must be more confident now, killing people in the middle of Hogsmeade, and killing Karkaroff and Malfoy, two defected Death Eaters, must mean something.

Harry knows that they're lucky that Voldemort has been forced to wait until now to actually start doing something, but it doesn't make the bitter taste in his mouth any sweeter. He hasn't been in the streets of Diagon Alley, but he'd felt the barest twinge of it in Gringotts earlier today, and heard it in the stiff tone of the woman on the radio, and even from Toots on the Herbology Hour. There's a pervading essence in the air of Wizarding Britain, a promise, Harry guesses, that war is coming again.

What will it be like?

He's read about the wars against goblins and whatever, even played historical boardgames with the Slytherin boys based on old wars, but it's not the same. He thinks about the snippets he's heard about in the letters that were written to him a few years back, when people were sending him pictures of his family...

He flicks his wand at the radio, and silence fills his bedroom as he walks across the room and pulls the organiser off the shelf. His letters are neatly organised, and he's allowed many of his relationships by letter to taper off - it doesn't feel right, not opening a Tuesday morning to a letter from Lucius Malfoy. Here Harry is, right at home, and it doesn't feel like it.

He doesn't take out the letters from Lucius - for obvious reasons, the man had never written to him about the war - and instead takes out the sheaf from Augusta Longbottom. She always writes on beautiful parchment with birds embossed in the corners, and her owl flies with so much grace that it often feels like she might have just flown off the parchment. Harry doesn't really read them, just scanning them and picking out certain words.

Past, your mum, Alice, future, Frank, Neville, war, Death Eaters, Gryffindor, Ministry...

Some words just stand out on the page, because she's hesitated over them or spent more time on the cursive letters with their big, old-fashioned loops. He sets aside the sheaf, neatly tying them with ribbon again, and he reaches for the album at the back of the organiser. He'd used to be so focused on adding to the album during and at the end of the year, adding photographs or little things, but he's never really done it this year - he's let it lose its focus in his life, like he has letter-writing. He pages through the thick, green-tinted paper, looking at the photos of his family, his parents, and then at the mixes of things.

Notes and tags from his first Christmas presents, the note (in handwriting he now recognizes as belonging to Albus Dumbledore) that had been attached to his Invisibility Cloak, postcards from the Weasleys and from other people's holidays... He frowns slightly, stopping on a page he'd filled out in his second year, and he reads his handwriting.

"From the secret library I unlocked in the Slytherin Common Room! Found it in the back of the old desk, thought it was cool. I love the snakes." Harry frowns a little, taking up the piece of paper. He vaguely remembers finding it, the way he'd crept into the library in the middle of the night and tried to find something more interesting, but he hadn't spared it any thought since pinning it into the album. There are drawings of skulls and snakes in green ink - little more than doodles, really - except that he recognizes one of the doodles. A snake comes forth out of a skull's open mouth - he's seen the Dark Mark in the sky, and most recently in the paper, and but for a little change here and there, this is it.

He turns the paper over, scanning over the page, and he sees Latin and Greek phrases scribbled down and then scribbled out: he can only make out two words. Anima - soul, life. And then, on the other corner of the page, concateno. That's like- to link, to connect. There are so many words between them, but they're all illegible, and Harry frowns deeply.

This is Voldemort's then, planning the beginnings of the Dark Mark - it makes sense, with how old the parchment is. It'd probably been in that little library since Voldemort had been at Hogwarts, and he must have snuck in to the library, but... Anima. Why would Voldemort need that word in the incantation for the Dark Mark? A connection makes sense for the Dark Mark, given that he uses it to contact his people like a Protean Charm, but why mention a soul or a lifeforce?

Harry glances over to the radio. He'd killed Lucius Malfoy and Igor Karkaroff - they'd had Dark Marks.

Voldemort had killed them together, but it wasn't as if Igor and Lucius were friends. They didn't walk the same paths any more, didn't even talk from what Harry had heard.

Hedwig comes to the window with a fluttering of her wings, and Harry opens it to let her in, taking the letter from her leg. He'd expected something from Hermione or the twins, or one of the Slytherins, but he recognizes, instead, the flowing handwriting of Albus Dumbledore. He leans, putting his nose to Hedwig's, and says, "This about today?" Hedwig makes a soft coo, noncommittal, and he strokes over her feathers.

"Alright," Harry murmurs, and he drops back onto his bed.


	105. Year Five: Sirius' Ashtray

_Dear Harry,_

 _Remus Flooed me earlier today in something of a conniption, and I felt a responsibility to pen this letter to you. While I appreciate your situation, Harry, and while I understand that in a time of such grief as this, you might wish to take some time to calm, I do beseech you to be safe._

 _With that in mind, however, I will not demand, as Remus requested I do, that you keep yourself confined to the safety of Sirius' apartment. Please, Harry, keep yourself attentive, and at all times keep your wand to hand, but I will tell you, now, that I have no objection to your traversing Muggle London. Ensure Remus and Sirius know where you are, as much as you feel you can reveal such things._

 _In the coming year, I fear life will make it difficult for you to relax. Voldemort is rising, and you will need strength for the year to come. Do what you need to do._

 _Yours,_

 _Albus Dumbledore_

Harry lets out a slow breath. He hadn't been holding his breath, not exactly, but for a few seconds he'd not really been breathing properly, frozen as he had been with anxiety, and now it all melts away. He closes his eyes, holding the letter in his right hand as he leans in, pressing his cheek against Hedwig's. She lets out a soft coo of sound, nipping affectionately at his ear.

"Thanks, Hedwig," Harry murmurs, and he sets the envelope on the bed. After a few moments pause, he steps out into the corridor. The apartment is absolutely silent - there's no radio, no breathing, nothing. Remus and Sirius have gone to meet with some of the Order, explains the note on the kitchen table - it's about doing rounds in some of the magical communities, and they're not including the Hogwarts students in the round-up because they're not fully trained yet.

Harry knows it'll probably grate on the twins, but the explanation makes complete sense to him.

Sprawling over the sofa in the living room, Harry takes a cigarette from the box, flicking a match to light and setting the tip of it aflame. He doesn't even smoke most of it - he just watches its soft glow: he should take up making potions over the summer. He wants to see something burn, and he might as well actually be making something as he does it.

"Is that a cigarette?" demands Sirius, and Harry turns his head. Sirius stands alone in the corridor: to answer him, Harry takes a slow, too-deep drag, and blows out a deliberate cloud of smoke. His throat burns, but through sheer willpower, he keeps from coughing. "Gimme one. I'm gasping." Harry laughs, but it's too much for his throat: he coughs instead, and he holds the box out. Taking one of the fags from within, Sirius tries to light it with a wandless gesture, but succeeds only in lightly singeing the end.

Harry hands him a match, and Sirius sighs.

"It's bloody hard, you know, wandless magic. No one ever tells you." He gestures vaguely about the room, but Harry isn't convinced.

"People say that wandless magic is extremely hard, all the time," Harry points out, slightly hoarsely. Sirius scoffs.

"Shows what idiots they are." With a wave of his hand and a flamboyant, "Accio!", a black object comes whizzing through the air from his and Remus' open bedroom door, and with a triumphant grin, he catches it in his hand. Harry laughs again. Sirius sets the ashtray on the coffee table, and Harry looks at it. "Lily got me this, you know, when I had my first cigarette. We don't have them, you see, wizards - me and James tried it at some concert, and he wasn't a fan, but I just really liked it, you know?" Sirius looks at the cigarette in his hands, nostalgically, thoughtfully. "We used to share menthols, me and her. Remus hated them, of course - him and Peter, they never-"

"Where is Remus?" Harry asks. He doesn't want to hear about his mum right now, or his dad, or the good old days - he doesn't know why exactly, but for some reason it feels wrong to be able to hear about them. What nice stories is Draco hearing about Lucius right now, after all?

"He's walking in Godric's Hollow, with Moody and some of the lads," Sirius answers. Reaching out and tipping a little of his ash into the tray, he says, "These're bad for you, you know." Sirius looks tired, Harry thinks: he has the slightest of dark shadows under his eyes, and his lips are dry and chapped, like he's been licking them anxiously through the day. He's dressed in silvery grey robes, and Harry is so used to him wearing Muggle stuff around the house that he almost looks strange.

"So's being a wizard. No one ever tried to kill me when I thought I was a Muggle," Harry says mildly. "Except Dudley, and he wasn't very good at it."

"That's the real problem, isn't it?" Sirius says, in an equally light tone. "Not that they try, but that they're sort of good."

"Mmm." Harry takes the last drag of his cigarette, and he extinguishes the butt in the black tray, trying to blow a ring of smoke and failing miserably. Picking up the ashtray, he examines it: around the edge are words, imprinted in white. "Abyssus abyssum invocat," Harry reads, slowly. "Hell calls Hell?"

"One bad thing leads to another," Sirius explains. "She thought it fit me and James quite well."

"Yeah," Harry agrees, stroking over the white-painted letters in their flowing script. "How are the Order? Given- you know."

"They're flightly, to be honest," Sirius admits. He looks into the middle distance, thoughtful, and then he shakes his head. "Some of them think Lucius deserved to get killed - you know how Moody is - but most of them are really shaken by it. They're upset they lost one of their own, even if it was him, and before the war's really started again."

"Do you think it is starting again, then?" Harry asks. Sirius thinks about the question for a few moments, and then gives a very slow inclination of his head.

"Yeah, but not yet. He's preparing himself. He'll draw himself up, You-Know-Who, get all his followers together, contact beasts and old allies. The war won't start yet." Harry thinks about the prophecies, and he thinks about Voldemort. The sooner Voldemort kills him, if that's what's really prophesied, if that's what'll really sort things out... Well, the sooner he dies, the sooner Voldemort will follow.

"We should end the war before it starts," Harry says, firmly. He meets Sirius' gaze: the older man's eyes are tired, and now they have a deep sadness shining in them, obscured as they are by the soft, grey smoke that rises from the cigarette. Reluctantly, Sirius gives a short nod of his head, and opens his mouth as if to say something, but when the latch of the door opens, he freezes.

Hurriedly, Harry snatches Sirius' cigarette from his hands and extinguishes it in the ashtray, kicking it under the sofa; Sirius mutters a desperate spell to Vanish the smoke from the air and clear away the smell of the smoke. Harry and Sirius must be trying too hard to look casual in the living room, because when Remus looks at them from the doorway, he slowly narrows his eyes.

"What?" he demands.

"Nothing,"

"Nothing," Sirius and Harry say together, and they share a glance. "That is, uh, we were talking about..."

"Dumbledore sent me a letter," Harry says. "Said you'd talked to him, that you were real worried about me, and to chill out a bit."

"Yes," Sirius agrees, nodding his head. Remus' expression remains suspicious as he looks between Harry and Sirius' faces, but evidently, they convince him, because he relaxes slightly. Instead of suspicious, he just looks exhausted, and flicking his wand behind him, Harry sets the kettle onto the hob to boil. When Remus leaves the room to take off his coat and change into some more comfortable clothes, Sirius hisses for him to hide the ashtray in his own room, and Harry rushes to do so.

* * *

The next day, Harry sits alone in Trafalgar Square, a book settled in his lap. He sits on the edge of one of the monuments, his back resting against one of the Landseer's Lions: some elderly passers-by glare at him, but he just ignores them (at least he's not a tourist) and focuses on the text. It's Advanced Potion Making, which is actually on the Sixth Year reading list rather than his own, but it looks more interesting, and if he does make some of the potions in it, he'd like to play with them over the summer. As he idly pages through the instructions for Felix felicis, Harry wonders if his mum's old textbooks are in her storage locker - Sirius had said that they'd used this same book when he'd been at school, and he can't help but wonder if she doodles in her books, like he does in his.

But then, hadn't he felt guilty just last night for hearing stories about her?

Harry looks up from the book, thinking about Draco. Is he going through Lucius' possessions, like Harry sometimes feels the want to go through that of his parents, or looking through photograph albums? Is he crying? Harry needn't wonder about that. Draco cries like a tap, under the right circumstances, and this is definitely one.

Harry can't really imagine the next year without Lucius Malfoy there, sending him advice in the post or making snide comments when they meet.

"Hey," comes a voice from below him, and Harry glances down. It's the blond boy from the arcade, his schoolbag slung over his shoulder, along this time. "You're the gay guy from Penney's, yeah?"

"Uh huh," Harry answers. He makes no move to get down, instead keeping his gaze on the other boy: he's about the same height as Draco, but he's skinnier, and Harry can see he doesn't have the light muscle that Draco has. He also, from what Harry can tell, hasn't been recently crying. "I'm Harry. Harry Potter." The complete lack of recognition on the other boy's face is enthralling.

"I'm Adrian," the boy says, and he steps closer, reaching up to Harry and offering his right hand. Harry shakes it, remembering when he was eleven years old, and he'd refused Draco's proffered hand - and then taken it again, later the very same evening. "What school do you go to? I've never seen you about London before."

"I go to a private school up North," Harry answers. "I was let out early."

"Why, what'd you do?" Adrian asks.

"Family friend got murdered." Adrian stares at him, his eyes slightly wide. His features are angular, his nose unfortunately pointy, and he has a square jaw that Harry guesses will get squarer in the next few years - his eyes are very deep, Harry notices. He has eyes that look old, even though they're not. "Sorry to be blunt. I'm just not in the mood to dance around it at the moment. Or talk about it," he adds. To his surprise, Adrian nods.

"Makes sense, to be honest, mate. Look, I'm just gonna walk down to Penney's, now - you want to go head-to-head on that dance game?"

"Where're your friends?" Adrian gives a sheepish grin.

"They're in the rugby club. I didn't make the cut." Harry sniggers - and then feels bad.

"No offence," Harry says, "but you don't look like you're made for rugby."

"Oh, no, I tried out for the cheerleading team... 'Cept we don't have a cheerleading team." Harry, to his surprise, laughs. Marking his place, he closes his book and drops it into his bag, and he fall into step with the other boy as they make their way into town. "What're you reading? It looks complicated."

"It's, uh, it's Home Ec," Harry says. When Adrian looks at him in surprise, Harry adds, "We've got a weird teacher for it. He's very strict, gets really particular about stuff, so it's a good idea to study in advance."

"Expects every casserole to be Michelin Star, does he?"

"Yeah," Harry says, smiling to himself as he imagines Severus Snape, dour and brooding, in chef's whites. "You do Home Ec?"

"Nah." Adrian shakes his head. "I do English, Science, Maths, and then for my options I chose Classics, French, German and Economics. I want to go to Cambridge. Oxford would be alright as well, I suppose. Where do you want to go?" It occurs to Harry, in a way it has never occurred to him before, that wizards don't have higher education. Theoretically, he's known this since he was a child, but he'd sort of forgotten about university entirely - he'd been so used to the idea that upon leaving Hogwarts, he'd go directly into work.

Well. When he believed he'd live that long, anyway.

"I don't know," Harry says. "I never really thought about it."

"God, that must be nice," Adrian says, looking rueful. He walks with his hands in his pockets, and unlike Harry, who keeps a careful glance around them whenever they turn a street corner, and is constantly alert, he seems to not have a care in the world. "Seems every chance they get ours are nagging us about UCAS." Harry doesn't know what UCAS is, but he isn't about to ask. Adrian expects him to know, so he'll just pretend he does. They walk in silence for a few minutes, and when they see Penney's at the end of the street, Adrian says, "You really gay?"

"I guess," Harry answers. "I've been with lads more than girls." Adrian looks at him somewhat admiringly.

"Wow. So you've, uh, you know... Had sex?"

"Haven't you?" Harry asks, and a little colour comes to Adrian's tanned cheeks.

"Bet you a quid I'll beat you." He says it a little too hurriedly, and Harry shrugs his shoulders.

"Alright, but you won't." Adrian runs before Harry into the arcade, and for the longest moment, Harry watches after him. For the first time in weeks, he thinks about Blaise Zabini.

Then he forgets him again, and walks inside.

Later, when Harry has won four games in a row, and he and Adrian are both covered in a thin sheen of sweat, they stand outside together. Adrian is breathing heavily, evidently a little more unfit than Harry, who has a glow to his features from the exercise, but isn't more than a little out of breath. Harry almost feels bad for him, and had tried to call for a break after the second game, but Adrian had been competitive, and had insisted they play on.

That's the main difference - the boy is competitive to a fault, even when it's obvious he can't win.

In a way, Harry supposes that draws a parallel between them.

"You gonna be okay?" Harry asks. "You need to go get a drink?" Adrian shakes his head, and Harry leans against the wall, flicking a piece of gum into his mouth. He offers a piece to Adrian, but he refuses it wheezily, and when Adrian's two friends come up the walkway, Harry gives them an easy wave.

"What'd you do to him?" asks the taller one.

"Danced with him," Harry answers. The two of them chuckle, and Adrian waves them off as they mockingly pat his back and coo over him. "I'm gonna head home. See you, guys."

"You live in London?" Adrian asks.

"Yeah."

"You here the summer?"

"Yeah." Adrian smiles at him.

"Cool. That's, uh, that's good." Harry gives the other boys a polite nod, and he walks home three hours before the sun goes down.

* * *

"What are you doing?" Remus asks. Harry carefully pours Boomslang Skin into the cauldron.

"Baking a cake," Harry replies. Remus waits for him to finish pouring before he slaps the back of Harry's head - lightly - and Harry chuckles. "I figured I'd practice before I went back to the school. We can put Polyjuice aside, for the Order. Just in case." Remus is silent for a few moments, and then his hand alights gently on Harry's shoulder. Harry turns to look at him, and he reads the uncertainty in Remus' face. He'd been upset when Harry had come home, but he'd calmed when Harry told him he'd spent the majority of his day reading in the park.

"You shouldn't have to do that," Remus murmurs.

"Shouldn't have to do a lot of things," Harry points out, putting his hand on top of Remus', and Remus sighs softly. He nods his head, and he passes Harry the stirrer.


	106. Year Five: Hogwarts Lets Out

It's been nearly two weeks of Harry being free to wander London, alone. Sometimes he'll walk with Remus or Sirius through Muggle London, and they even went out to Manchester one evening, went out to dinner as a family. It's fine, and Harry is glad of it, glad of the intimacy they can have together, of the familial stuff... But a part of him wants to completely isolate himself, walk out to the mountains near Hogwarts or drop himself in the middle of rural Bulgaria. And Sirius and Remus let him have some alone time, sure, but they worry too much to let him completely leave for any length of time.

"Hogwarts lets out today," Sirius murmurs. He's in Harry's windowsill, the window wide open and one of his legs hanging down out of it, his other drawn up to his chest so that he can rest his elbow on his knee. In his right hand he holds a cigarette, ensuring most of the smoke goes out of the window instead of staying in Harry's room. He looks so young like this, Harry thinks - Sirius isn't ancient or anything, no, but when he's relaxed in Harry's window frame, looking vaguely thoughtful, Harry can get a glimpse of the teenager he'd been.

Did Sirius sit like this in the Gryffindor dormitory, as Harry's dad sat on his bed? Did they sneak cigarettes while Remus was out of the house during the war, working?

The idea bites at Harry's relaxed mood, and he runs his hand through his hair.

"Yeah," Harry says. "I'm gonna go to the train station and meet people." Sirius nods his head, taking a slow drag of the cigarette. He'd gone out and bought his own when he realised Harry had begun to smoke, and Sirius does it more often than Harry himself. He likes menthol cigarettes: Harry'd taken a drag of one and nearly gagged at the almost-minty taste clinging to the roof of his mouth, so it's best that they have separate habits. Harry doesn't know how ready he really is to head out. There's going to be a lot of people around, he knows, but he wants to see Fred and George, Hermione, Draco... "I'll probably go out in an hour or so."

Sirius flicks a little of his ash out of the window, and he looks at Harry. His expression is solemn, and it doesn't really fit his facial features. Harry has been so used to Sirius grinning and smiling, even when he was just out of Azkaban and shaking every other second. "Cissy said she wants to have a family dinner next week. Me and you and Remus, Drom, Tonks and Ted, her and Draco..." Harry glances to him. Sirius looks uncertain about it, like he's waiting for Harry to approve and assuming he won't, but Harry nods his head.

"Yeah, that sounds good." There's a short pause, and Harry asks, "She invited Remus, huh?" Sirius looks out of the window, apparently focused on not looking at Harry. His expression is carefully schooled into something neutral, and Harry remembers what a good liar Sirius is. Purebloods learn to be, don't they? Purebloods with families like Sirius', anyway.

"I think Cissy... I think she feels lonely. Purebloods like that, they don't do the big family that the Weasleys have, you know? Even when they do have a lot of kids, family is more of a duty than a love thing. When I was a kid, Harry, I remember big dinners where barely a word would be said at the table. Narcissa's always lived like that; Drom broke out of it, and so did I. I think she kinda wants to embrace the nontraditional right now." Harry nods his head. He can't help but wonder, sometimes, what it is that Sirius thinks of the bits of family he has left, if he wishes he had more of his family to go to. Sirius has only ever criticized his family, from what Harry has heard, but still.

"Then she should invite Snape," Harry says. Sirius' head whips towards him.

"Don't worry: he won't come. But he's more family to her than I am."

"You don't really think that," Sirius says. "You're like- I'm sorry if you don't like me saying this, Harry, but I think of you like a son - so does Remus. We always have." He looks so nervous about saying it, and Harry lies back on the bed, staring up at his ceiling.

"No, I know," Harry says. "I think of you guys like parents, in a way. I love you and Remus, Sirius, but Snape is like Draco's uncle, in a lot of ways. A weird, aggressively sarcastic uncle that kind of looks like a vampire bat-" Sirius sniggers. "-but an uncle nonetheless." Sirius' lip is curled when Harry looks at him, but after the longest pause, he gives a single nod of his head.

"I'll tell her you said that," Sirius says. The reluctance in his voice is plain, but he says it like it's a promise.

101010101010011001010101010101010101010101001

Harry stands on Platform 9 3/4, his hands in his pockets. He wears a button-up shirt and some jeans, but overtop of his Muggle clothes he wears a cloak that's buckled at his neck - it's a light, summer cloak, but he'd just grabbed it off the rack before picking up a jacket. He feels kinda weird, standing here on the platform, given that the others standing around are parents or families. Here he is, a teen standing on his own, and he must look really out of place, but nobody talks to him - thank Merlin.

The train comes slowly into the station, and Harry smiles as he sees the kids pressed against the windows, waving at their parents and calling out to their younger siblings; Harry gets onto the train and he stands with the prefects, helping them pull the younger children's cases down onto the platform. Harry's so used to using all the magic he wants back at the flat, and it's funny being out in public, obeying the law.

"Hey, Harry!" Fred says, and he drops his trunk heavily into Harry's arms, making him let out an oof of sound.

"Hey, Fred," Harry replies, and throws the trunk back at him. Fred grins at him, barely seeming shocked by the sudden weight in his arms, and he throws his trunk down the steps to George, who catches it with ease. Bloody Beaters and their stocky builds. Hermione runs up the platform towards them, and Harry steps down, letting her pull him into a tight, bone-breaking hug. Hermione's grin is as wide as Harry's ever seen it, and he takes her trunk from her, setting it down on the platform and turning to wave for Hermione's parents to come over. As Hermione greets her parents, talking away to them at such a speed that Harry can barely understand it, Harry makes light conversation with the twins.

Molly and Arthur Weasley are at the other end of the platform, fussing over Ron and Ginny as they come off the train. They look sheepish and irritated with the attention respectively, and Harry can read in Fred and George's body language that they're inwardly bracing themselves for the attention. "Give us a hand there, would you, Harry?" George says, nodding his head to a separate case holding their brooms and beater's equipment, and Harry arches an eyebrow at him. George's grin is anything but ashamed.

"You transparent bastard," Harry says, but he grabs hold of the bag nonetheless, and follows the twins over to the family. Fred is laughing, shoving Harry in the side and ruffling his hair, holding his trunk on his right shoulder, and Harry can't help but shake his head as he comes over and places the bag on top of Ginny, Ron and George's trunks on the trolley Arthur has ready.

"What are you three laughing about?" Molly asks.

"Harry's been out on the town, Mum. Got a Muggle girl pregnant." The gasp of horror is theatrical, but not feigned, from what Harry can see, and Harry elbows Fred hard enough in the side that he lets out a groan of pain.

"Nobody is pregnant, Molly, and everything is fine." Mrs Weasley slumps with relief, and as she fusses over the reluctant but resigned figures of the twins, Harry turns to the patriarch of the Weasley family.

"I used to say that, you know," Arthur tells him, dreamily. Ginny sniggers, and she looks at Harry, giving him a smile. It's strange - Harry's only gone maybe a month or two without seeing her, since before the murder, but she looks so different. Perhaps it's that her hair is a little longer, or that she's getting more sleep: her face seems fuller, prettier, her eyes seem brighter. He's never noticed her smile being especially nice to look at before. "How are you, Harry?"

"I'm okay, Arthur. I've just been studying a little for next year, reading a bit... It's quiet in London, at the moment, as I'm sure you know. Most people are staying inside." Ginny's brow furrows, and she looks between Harry and Arthur, seeming to take in and be irritated by their serious expressions; Ron's nose is wrinkled, and Harry realizes in the instant how similar the faces they make can be. But Harry isn't exactly speaking in code, so there's hardly any reason for resentment toward him for saying it. "I've been hanging around Muggles a lot."

"You're staying safe?" Arthur prompts, and Harry feels the urge to sigh, but guilt cuts the expression before he can release it.

"Yeah, of course," Harry says, and Arthur nods seriously. He keeps eye contact with Harry for a little longer than he ordinarily would. Arthur isn't showing some unusual sign of ageing, no especially new grey hairs, no new lines in his face, but the worry radiating from him, the quiet comprehension that the world is building once again to some threatening crescendo, is palpable. He's a good man. "George, write me, yeah? I'll come over to Ottery St. Catchpole sometime in the summer, if you want."

"That'd be great," George says, giving a nod, and George pulls him into a hug, with Fred pulling Harry toward him the second after. As he comes closer, Fred leans in slightly, to murmur in Harry's ear.

"We'll Floo you tonight. 1 o'clock."

"Got it," Harry mutters back, and he gives Molly a not-entirely mocking salute that she laughs and returns before Harry heads across the platform. Hermione is talking animatedly, and Peggy and Jon are chattering back to her. They ask a lot of questions, Harry notices, but only about stuff she's already speaking about. They always give Harry the impression of wanting more knowledge rather than being protective over her, and he has to wonder sometimes how difficult it might be for them to parent the way they do. Hermione is smart, of course, but they're so hands-off compared to other parents, like Molly and Arthur, or Narcissa and-

Harry looks around the platform, half-expecting to see the tall, dark-clad figure of Lucius Malfoy cutting through the crowd, but there's no such luck. He sees Narcissa, though, just spying her as she leaves the station with Draco in tow, and Harry feels a sickly feeling in the base of his stomach. The man is dead. Why would he be here?

"Harry?" Hermione looks at him as if she's just said his name a few times.

"Yeah?"

"Dad just asked if you want to come for lunch with us."

"Oh, right," he says, feeling a little embarrassed heat come into his face. What must he look like, staring around the platform, searching for a dead man? Peggy is looking at him with a little worry on her face, but Harry forces a smile. "Yeah, I'd love to, actually. Where is it you two wanted to go?" As Peggy and Jon turn to each other, throwing a few restaurant names out apiece, Harry meets Hermione's slightly worried gaze.

" _You okay?_ " she mouths.

" _On the way there,_ " he replies. It is a testament to how different Hermione is to a few years ago, Harry supposes, that rather than immediately shooting a thousand questions at him, she gives a small nod of her head, and then relaxes into the silence.

 **A/N: Hey, guys, sorry for the radio silence! I finished university for the summer, so I've been juggling about 4000 projects at once, but now I'm going to be settling back into regularly writing fanfiction again, balanced against a new YouTube schedule. Thanks so much for reading, and feel free to drop me any questions or comments you might have!**


	107. Year Five: Cigarette Burns

The restaurant is busy.

Harry sits beside Hermione and across from Peggy in the corner of the room, but the chatter in the room rises and falls in little waves with the lulls of natural conversation; he hears a host of different accents, and by no means is the only language floating over to this corner of the room English. Normally, Harry would enjoy the differences in the way people are speaking, but for now, all the noise seems to needle at him, and he can feel himself tense and stiff in his chair. Hermione is keeping an eye on him, but Harry knows that if he asks her about it, he'll only end up snapping.

What is wrong with him?

He fidgets under the table as he slowly picks at his ravioli, bouncing his right knee quickly in place. Peggy and Jon are talking about what's been happening most recently in their dental practice, updating Hermione on family friends, on conferences and academic events Peggy and Jon have gone to, and even bringing her up to date on a particular soap that Hermione has never mentioned and, from what Harry can guess by her face, never actually had a desire to watch.

"So, are you excited about any of your OWLs in particular?" Peggy asks, seeming to garner the same thing and interrupting Jon, and Hermione glances up from her fork, seeming to think about the question.

"I am," Hermione says. "OWL Defence Against the Dark Arts looks very interesting - we start looking at the theory of non-verbal magic, you know, and while we don't actually start studying it until sixth year, I'm excited to give it a whirl. Ancient Runes becomes so much more active in the way it's taught, too - ooh, and Herbology, and History, actually, and-"

"So, basically, you're excited about everything?" Harry asks mildly, and Hermione stops short, then laughs at herself.

"Yes," she agrees. Harry's grin is small, and it doesn't really do much to cut through the stress and anxiety he can feel, but he's glad to know that there's still a smile ready inside him, even like this. Peggy and Jon have turned to Harry now, however, and Harry can just feel himself coiling tighter and tighter, like the spaghetti around Hermione's fork.

"I'm excited about Potions," Harry says. A part of him, an angry, nasty part of him that he tries to ignore, says, Why are they even asking? They're Muggles, what do they know? What's the point? They might as well be asking an astronaut how his day went. He resists the urge to close his eyes and purse his lips together, instead making eye contact with Jon, and then Peggy, forcing himself to stay in his place. "The work becomes a little more dangerous, particularly looking at new kinds of poisons and the like, but we look at antidotes too, and how the two respond to one another, as well as examining the work of catalysts in time-activated potions. For example, certain medicines would lose their potency if bottled whilst magically active, so one can place a final ingredient in the seal, so that the potion is finished upon opening."

"That sounds really interesting, Harry - I haven't even started looking at fifth year Potions yet! Oh, it sounds great!" There's something about Hermione's genuine, honest excitement that grates on him rather than improving his mood, so Harry doesn't reply, and just offers a small smile before returning his focus to his food. Peggy and Jon keep on talking, asking Hermione questions about this bit of that course and that bit of the other.

What do they know?

Harry's fork makes a thin screeching sound against the surface of his plate, and he flinches. "Sorry," he mutters. The other three return to conversation: Jon is talking animatedly, waving his knife and fork and dripping lasagne on the white tablecloth; the way Peggy sits is too stiff, too unnatural, and Harry thinks of a stupid statue that's in the Slytherin second year corridor.

You've got a knife in your belt.

That thought is positively unbidden, and Harry stops eating, staring down at his ravioli, swimming in its thick, blood-red sauce. Harry has got a knife in his belt, the bronze-hilted dagger he'd bought last year in Hogsmeade, just like he has the comforting weight of his packet of Silk Cut and his wand in his pocket, but that's nothing. He wouldn't actually hurt someone, wouldn't actually kill someone - least of all Jon, or Peggy.

Unless he could do it. Unless he would do it.

"Do you want to get dessert, Harry?" Peggy asks him. Harry feels like he's hearing her voice from the surface while sat the bottom of a swimming pool.

"No, thanks, Peggy. I'm not hungry."

* * *

"Hey, Harry!" He turns his head as they exit the restaurant: Adrian comes over, grinning and showing off his teeth, and although Harry's smile is weak, it's genuine. "I don't suppose you're from that private school of his?"

"That's right," Hermione says, putting out her hand to shake, and she grins at Harry before turning to Adrian. "I'm Hermione. I'm in a different house, but we share classes."

"House? God, how old-fashioned is this place?" Adrian demands, but Harry can read the joke in his face even though his tone is indignant, and Hermione gives a soft chuckle. "I go to school here in London - I met Harry at the arcade. I'm just on my way there now, actually. Do you want to come along?"

"Yeah, sure," Harry says, shaking Jon and Peggy's hands respectively. "The arcade is on the way back to Sirius' place, so I'll walk with him."

"Are you sure you don't want a lift, Harry? " Hermione asks, but Harry just smiles a little, and shakes his head.

"Nah, traffic in London will be ages. You guys should get out onto the motorway before the evening picks up again. I'm used to walking around." After hugging Hermione, Harry walks alongside Adrian, drawing a cigarette out of the packet in his pocket and flicking it alight. He feels Adrian's gaze out of the corner of his eye, but he doesn't comment on it, instead glancing around at those on the streets about them. It's starting to get busy again with the evening light, and they walk past crowds of Muggles dresses up for nights on the town.

"So, houses, huh?"

"Yeah. Mine is called Slytherin: our house colours are green and silver. She's a Gryffindor, so she's red and gold."

"You're so bloody posh," Adrian says, shaking his head, and Harry finds himself laughing. The sound is a little more bitter than he really intends, thinking about growing up in Little Whinging in hand-me-down clothes with Dudley breathing down his neck: Harry is anything but posh. "Are there a lot of black girls at your school? I never know how it is in the private places."

"Yeah, a fair few. We've got all kinds of people, really - I've got a friend, Draco, he looks a lot like you. You should see him next to his cousin, who's black: he's very pale, of course, but they've got the same nose and the same ears." Harry taps the base of his cigarette, dropping ash onto the street as they walk toward the arcade, and he feels a slight twinge of guilt - there's blood politics, of course, and there's a worry about class, but he's lucky to live in the wizarding world in a lot of ways. No racism, no sexism... "Pretty accepting of different religions and races, really."

"That's pretty cool! I just go to a normal school - my parents actually wanted me to go to this Hebrew school. We're in the catchment area and stuff, but my grandma kinda put her foot down, said she'd heard too many stories of kids getting beaten up wearing their uniforms, and you should see the place, you know? There's a huge big fence around it, they have to do all these alarms... Drills, in case of terrorists." Adrian doesn't look that upset, merely shaking his head and seeming disappointed, annoyed that this happens, but Harry feels a sickly weight in his belly. "Our rabbi's a pretty relaxed guy, though, so he didn't mind."

"One of the guys in my year, Theo, is Jewish," Harry says. "He's not that religious or anything, I don't think, but he wears a star of David."

"And he's circumcised?" Harry laughs.

"Dunno, haven't checked. I assume so." Do Muggles talk about religion more often than wizards? Maybe. Harry doesn't know what the dominant religion is - the Dursleys had been Church of England, but they'd never done anything with the church or gone to services, except for weddings and funerals, and it hadn't seemed to mean much to them. He hears discussions in classes or on the radio sometimes, and he knows that Theo meets some of the other Jewish kids in school on Friday nights. Most people seem to be atheists. "Are you guys super religious?"

"A little," Adrian says. "We keep the kashrut - that's laws about how we should eat, like not eating pork, and some religious rituals. We're pretty close with our rabbi, and my Uncle Moshe is a rabbi in New York. You?" The violence, intrusive thoughts Harry had been having earlier have faded away, now, but he feels a little antsy nonetheless, and he keeps on walking at speed beside the other boy.

"My parents died when I was a baby, so I never really knew them, but I don't think they were religious." Adrian watches Harry take a drag of the cigarette, and Harry meets his gaze. They're outside Penney's now: the arcade is closed. There's a sign on the door apologizing and saying they'll be open tomorrow. Did Adrian know, Harry wonders? Harry sees the nervousness on his face as he steps out toward the smoking area out the back of the adjoining café. He knew. "I live with my uncles, now, and they're not religious at all."

"They're brothers?" Adrian asks, seeming surprised.

"Partners," Harry replies. He looks Adrian in the face, sees his eyes nervously flitting around Harry, at his cigarette, his fingers, his shoes, his face, his belly. "So, the arcade's closed."

"Yeah," Adrian says, unconvincingly. "Sorry, I forgot." Harry reaches out, plucking an imaginary piece of lint from Adrian's collar, and as soon as he closes a little of the distance between them, Adrian grabs him and pulls him close enough to kiss.

* * *

It's midnight.

Harry walks along the Hungerford Bridge, a new cigarette hanging loosely from his lips, and his hands in his pockets. It's a warm night, and his clothes are ruffled: Adrian's parents had been out to dinner with some friends, and Adrian's three younger brothers had been out on a trip with the scouts, so Adrian had had the house to himself. And Harry.

Harry grins to himself, and he looks out across the water.

That vicious streak is still in him - when they were in Adrian's room, surrounded by posters for bands Harry's never heard of, Harry had felt it bloom once again, roughly kissed the other boy, thrown him around a little. Not violently, exactly, just... Not tenderly. Harry feels a rush inside himself, even now, and when a guy shoulders him on the bridge, he snaps.

"Oi! Watch where you're going!" The figure, tall and lanky, turns to stare at him. Harry recognizes, after a moment's stare, the spotty face of Stan Shunpike. He grins, showing off some slightly yellow teeth, and Harry wrinkles his nose slightly. "Alright, Stan?" It's unconvincing, and it's certainly not friendly: he turns, starting to walk onwards, but Stan grabs him by the shoulder, throwing him up against the side of the bridge. "Oi!"

But Stan has moved surprisingly quickly, and his wand is pressed right up to Harry's face, the tip of it touching the bottom of his chin. Harry stares at him, searching his wild and excited expression for some kind of answer, but Shunpike gives him none.

"Oh, 'e's gonna be 'appy with me, innit? What'chu walkin' round London on your own for?"

"Who's gonna be happy with you, you dickhead? Let me go." But Stan presses his wand a little tighter against Harry's neck, an obvious threat, and Harry sees the mark on his arm, grey-green in the orange light of summer night. It shifts under Harry's gaze, and Harry feels his breath catch in his throat at the victory he sees in Shunpike's face.

"I'm new, you see," Stan says, whispers. "I was just on my way out to a meeting, but I didn't know you was in town, Potter. 'E's gonna love this." Harry can't go for his wand, but there's a cigarette hanging from his fingers, so he shifts quickly and presses the burning butt into the side of Stan's neck, making him scream and drop his wand. It rolls on the edge of the bridge, falling down into the Thames below, and as Stan drops to try to grab for it, Harry kicks him hard int he ribs.

Stan Shunpike, a Death Eater? That's mad, that's just fucking stupid.

But Harry sees when he rips up Stan's sleeve that the tattoo is right there.

"You bastard," Harry says reaching into his pocket for his wand, but Stan lunges for him, hands clasping around his throat and tightening on the flesh there - the pressure hurts, and Harry can't breathe, can't breathe, as he desperately grabs for his wand. Stan just holds him tighter, and Harry feels the pads of his dirty thumbs in the hollow of his neck, pushing bruises into the pale skin there, feels his vision darkening at the edges, hears his thready pulse jumping in his ears, and he just needs to reach it-

The knife slashes quick over Stan's belly, and he lets out a harsh , choking sound, stumbling backwards from Harry, abruptly letting him go. Harry is bent over, touching his burning neck and heaving in what breaths he can, and he can't believe he did that. Can't believe he used a knife, his knife, can't believe-

Stan lunges again, and it's not a shallow slash this time: Stan all but impales himself on Harry's dagger, and Harry even hears the sudden click of his lowest rib against the metal. Stan's eyes are wide, his face pale, his mouth open; he rips back the knife and he watches Stan fall. There's no feeling inside him, no worry - there's merely the rush of it, mingling with his rush at having been with Adrian.

Harry stares down at Stan, on the ground, and then looks at the knife in his hand.

He needs to get home: he runs.

The next day, the Daily Prophet's headline is **DEATH EATER KILLED IN MUGGING BY MUGGLE,** and Harry stares at the paper in silence.


	108. Year Five: The Anima Link

"You okay, kid?" Sirius asks as he comes into the kitchen, and Harry presses his lips together, resting his chin on the backs of his hands. He looks down at the Daily Prophet, eyes scanning the headline, and then Sirius meets Harry's gaze, looking serious. Harry takes in a small inhalation: he'd been up much of the night before, thinking for a long time on one thing or another, and he had, for the first time in months, began replying to the letters that had been waiting for him to respond to. He'd written a missive to Amelia Bones, then another to Augusta Longbottom, and at three in the morning he'd been left sitting in the middle of his bed, glancing through his photo albums. "What is it?"

"I wrote Dumbledore last night. There's an Order meeting at 7 this evening." Sirius furrows his brow, staring down at him. Harry feels his own exhaustion weighing him down, as he'd only got an hour or two's sleep, in the end. He'd managed that much only by making use of his Occlumency training, compartmentalizing his thoughts temporarily, just in order to get that fragment of a good night's rest. He'll have to sleep some more before they go out to Grimmauld Place.

"He told you that?"

"No," Harry says. "I told him." A ghost of something unexpected passes over Sirius' face, something like fear, and Harry furrows his brow a little further. Sirius soon warms slightly, though, and he places his hand gently on Harry's shoulder. Sirius' touch is a warm and comforting weight, and he seems to recognize the confusion on Harry's face.

"You looked just like your dad, for a second there," Sirius murmurs. He hesitates a moment, and then says, "The day we joined the Order." Harry inhales, slowly, and Sirius adds, "Sorry."

"It's okay." Sirius draws his hand away, stepping toward the counter and taking the kettle from the stove, pouring some hot water into a cup. The smell of coffee comes richly into the air between them, and when Sirius presses a mug into Harry's hands, he doesn't refuse it. Taking a small sip, he looks back to the paper. Stan Shunpike looks out at him from the page, grinning and holding a violently struggling Bludger in his hands; the article itself talks about how Shunpike's wand had not been recovered, and about how he had been slashed across the belly before he was stabbed. The Shunpike in the photograph is younger and spottier, wearing his Ravenclaw under robe and with a scarf tied around his waist.

He'd been a shit beater, someone had told Harry once, and had only lasted one or two games - maybe Bill Weasley told him, but he can't quite remember. Took more Bludgers to the head than with his bat.

"Did you know him?" Sirius asks. "This Shunpike lad?"

"No, not really," Harry says. "He was the conductor on the Knight Bus."

"They never last long," Sirius says, shaking his head as he heads into the living room. "Most of them end up getting hit by cars."

**ϟ** **~ THE LERNAEAN HYDRA ~** **ϟ**

It's a little past six o'clock, and Remus, Sirius and Harry are walking through the streets on their way to Grimmauld Place: they'd wanted to get there early, but there are people from far further afield that need to Floo in, so it hardly makes sense for them to do so. The idea hadn't upset Harry much, but apparently Sirius had heard a lot of (probably untrue) horror stories about people trying to Floo into a place at the same time and getting Splinched together. Harry hadn't minded. It's a warm evening, if a little too humid for his liking, but why should he have a say in how humid it is?

He killed a man last night.

"Harry!" He turns his head, mild surprise showing on his face, and Adrian grins at him. Harry's smile feels cold and forced, and he concentrates to soften the 's is just a street away - perhaps he lead them to this route unconsciously.

"Hi, Adrian." When Adrian reaches out his hand, Harry acts instinctively: it's not a handshake, really, because Harry clasps Adrian's hand with both of his own, and holds it a little too closely to his chest. Despite the oppressive warmth of the evening, weighed down by the moisture in the air, the warmth of Adrian's hand between his own is kind of comforting. Adrian leans in slightly, and then he looks at Sirius and Remus over Harry's shoulder. His uncertainty is palpable, and Harry says, "These are my Uncles. Sirius is the guy that can't dress himself, and the normal-looking one is Remus."

Sirius is laughing, his head thrown back, but when Harry lets Adrian go, Remus shakes his hand. He looks a little haggard, as the full moon is fast approaching, but his clothes are in a state of good repair, and Harry can imagine Adrian guessing him as an accountant or a bank clerk - overworked, but respectable. Sirius, of course, could be anything from rich eccentric to rock star, and Harry will have to think up a convincing explanation for him.

"Nice to meet you. Adrian, is it?" Remus asks, pleasantly, as Sirius shakes Adrian's hand very vigorously.

"Yeah, Adrian King," he says. He smiles a little, and flicks his head back, throwing his hair out of his eyes; his hands are in his pockets, but his shoulders are back, and he looks confidently between both of Harry's "uncles". "Me and Harry know each other from the arcade."

"The arcade, yes," Sirius says. "Great place to meet girls." Harry sees the confusion on Adrian's face, but Remus just chuckles and smirks at the other man.

"Do you know what an arcade is, Sirius?" Remus asks mildly, arching an eyebrow, his lip twitching.

"Uh, yeah. I'm great at bowling," Sirius says, and when all three of them laugh at him, his confidence turns quickly to indignation. "What? There's a ball, there's pins-"

"We have an appointment we have to go to, Adrian," Harry says quietly. People walk past them, but the streets aren't really busy, for London - more people are sat down in beer gardens rather than walking through the centre of the city. "It's a family thing. You want to meet up tomorrow, though?"

"Yeah, sure," Adrian says. He hesitates a second, green-brown eyes studying Harry's face, and then says, "Have you- You guys haven't got a phone?" The question takes Harry by surprise, stupidly, why had he never thought of that? Why wouldn't a regular person have a phone in their house?

"Uh-"

"Sirius and I have a strict separation between business and home," Remus says, breaking into the conversation. "We don't have a phone-line, let alone dial-up or a phone. Keeps people from calling us at all hours." It's so smooth that Harry wonders if Remus has practised these lines in front of a mirror or something, but why would he? What Muggles does Remus talk to? "Sorry about that, Adrian."

"Don't worry about it," Adrian says, smiling: there's no suspicion obvious on his face at all. "How does four sound?"

"Yeah, sure. Meet you then," Harry says, and he leads Sirius and Remus back in the direction of Grimmauld Place. For maybe fifteen or twenty minutes as they walk, there's silence between the two of them, but as soon as they step over the threshold of Number 12 and close the door behind them, Sirius explodes. As Remus neatly removes his coat, Sirius bounces from his heels to his toes, running around in circles like an excited hound, and Harry tries to force his expression into neutrality rather than letting the smile break across his face.

"Who was that? He was a Muggle? Have you shagged him? What was that thing with the hands? When did you meet him? What is-" Sirius begins talking so fast that his proper Pureblood enunciation becomes lost in the blurred words, and Harry tunes it out, moving into the dining room. Settled at the dining room table, chatting amiably with Narcissa and Dromeda, is Bill Weasley: both women are watching him with a disturbingly concentrated gaze, and Harry elects not to dwell too much on why that might be. Leaning against a cabinet is Cecilia Hayworth, talking rapidly with Tonks, Ted and Charlie Weasley; she gesticulates wildly, and Ted is interjecting every once in a while. Arthur and Percy Weasley are arguing over a checker board; Mad-Eye Moody stands alone, staring broodily out of a window; Lindon Sartorius is talking very quietly with a man Harry has to take a second before he recognizes.

"Mr Keats," he says, and the man turns. His glassy eyes are soft behind his glasses, but as his gaze turns upon Harry it hardens slightly, as if he's suddenly coming away from a dream in his head. Beside Sartorius, who is skinny but tall, Dorian Keats looks very small: he's the record keeper that had brought news of the prophecy to Harry when it had been given to Lavender Brown last year. "When did you join our ranks?"

"This very week, Mr Potter," Harry had almost forgotten: Keats eternally speaks as if he's in a very posh library, and any word spoken too loudly is likely to get him expelled. His voice is rather high for a man's, but it's not gratingly so, especially not when it's heard in barely a whisper. "Lindon gave my name to Dumbledore. How are you faring?"

"Well, Voldemort hasn't killed me yet." At the name, the room goes abruptly silent, and Harry sees Dumbledore in the doorway from the kitchen. At his shoulder is McGonagall, and at his hip, Flitwick. "We've got twenty minutes to go. No business yet." Harry is almost surprised by the sternness in his voice, and even more surprised by the fact that everybody in the room seems to obey him, returning to their conversations, if a little more quietly than before. Across the room, Dumbledore meets Harry's gaze, and they exchange small nods.

In this moment, Harry feels impossibly old.

"It's good to see you, Mr Keats. We'll talk later." Something passes over Keats' face, an uncertainty or a fear, maybe, but then he nods his head, and Harry walks away from him, approaching Dumbledore. In the round mirror on the wall that he passes, he sees Sirius and Remus only just entering the dining room, and immediately they begin talking with Lindon and Keats. Sirius looks pale, and Harry wonders for a moment if he and Remus were arguing in the stairwell.

"Headmaster," Harry says, nodding his head politely. "I hope you don't think I've overstepped tonight."

"No, Harry, not at all," Dumbledore says, shaking his head slightly to the side; his beard, which had been tucked into his belt, comes loose, and he takes hold of the thick, grey ends and tucks them back into their proper place, where he is unlikely to- What? Trip? "Your letter, of course, came as something of a surprise, but I merely wish you would tell me what precisely you are worried about, that I might better allay your fears. There are so many things for people to be scared of, in these times..."

Determinedly, Harry says, "I'm not scared, sir. I just have a few important questions to raise, that's all, and I think I have some answers."

"You wish you didn't, eh, Potter?" Flitwick looks up into Harry's eyes, his gaze direct and his expression solemn. It strikes Harry that the question is coming from a place of empathy and understanding, and he nods his head. He's always liked Professor Flitwick, but it's strange to be here: of course, he still feels the need to use the proper titles for his professors, to be respectful, but he also feels like he's being looked at as almost an equal. The sensation is surreal.

"Yes, sir. I'll admit to that." More and more people are suddenly filtering into the room now: Snape has been dragged into the conversation between the other men his age by a delighted Lindon Sartorius, and Moody is already arguing with Sturgis Podmore and some other Aurors Harry doesn't recall the names of. People are beginning to sit down around the table, and Percy's checkers board has been Vanished away. Narcissa Malfoy gets hold of a cushion for Flitwick to sit on, and he enchants it to bring him up to a comfortable level with the table: McGonagall doesn't sit, choosing to stand behind Flitwick's chair, and Moody also stays standing at the side of the room with Kingsley Shacklebolt on his left and Percy Weasley on his right. Around the room, Harry sees faces that are both very familiar and only semi-so - he sees Dedalus Diggle, Hestia Jones, Hagrid (who is standing in the corner of the room, as he won't fit at the table)... But there are new people too: not just Keats, but people Harry semi-recognizes from other places, or younger members, like Oliver Wood. "Mrs Figg!" Harry says, and he moves to pull out a chair for her: she sits down very slowly, giving him a very warm and kind smile, and Harry politely ignores the smell of Kneazles clinging to her clothes. "How are you doing?"

"Oh, I'm alright now, Harry," she says, nodding her head and placing her handbag neatly in her lap. "I live in Darning-On-Tweed now; one of those little communities with more wizards than Muggles, you know? It's where that nice young man, Oliver Wood is from. Do you know him?"

"Yes, Ma'am," Harry nods, and Dumbledore clears his throat, causing a hushed silence to spread through the room. Rather than taking a seat at the head of the table, like usual, however, he sits on the right hand, across from Sirius and Remus: the head seat is left empty, and he nods Harry toward it. Surprised and stiff, Harry moves over, moving to stand between the high-backed chair and the long dining table. For a long few moments, there is complete silence, and Harry stares around the room, at everybody's faces - there are forty people in the room, and every single one of them is looking right at Harry, some of them surprised to see him, it seems.

"In his messages to you tonight, Professor Dumbledore probably told you the meeting wasn't being convened by him. For those of you that don't know, or haven't met me before, my name is Harry Potter." A few of the strange faces show their surprise, and Harry shifts his head slightly, making sure his fringe is covering the scar on his forehead. Pushing his glasses up his nose, he is aware of how fast his blood seems to be moving through his veins, how much his heart is beating in his chest, and he does his best to ignore it. "Voldemort killed my parents, but now that he's back, he's concentrated on me again. You've probably read the prophecies I published in the Prophet this year: he has his reasons, I guess, just like I have mine for living. It's not about those prophecies that I want to talk tonight, though..." People flinch at the name, but he won't shy away from it... They'll stop in the end.

"Stan Shunpike was murdered last night on the Hungerford Bridge. His wand hasn't been recovered - the Aurors think it fell into the Thames, yeah? - but they saw the tattoo on his left arm. That's why wizards were called in: it's not exactly normal for a tattoo to move like that in the Muggle word." Kingsley Shacklebolt and Eleanor Guinan are both nodding at his comment about the wand: every person in the room seems rapt, and it's strange for so many people to pay attention to him. Snape is looking right at Harry's face, and when Harry meets his black gaze, he thinks about how he'd used his Occlumency to sleep, and he considers it now, too. The memories of the knife, of the cigarette burn, of Shunpike falling onto the ground, are all neatly filed away, out of reach.

Snape's expression, as ever, remains impassive.

"The Aurors reported it was likely a Muggle mugging gone wrong - they tried to rob him, and when they found he didn't have a wallet with recognizable money on him, they stabbed him and left him for dead." Again, Shacklebolt and Guinan nod. "I think you're wrong." Shacklebolt's expression betrays only a slight curiosity, but Harry sees Guinan bristle, so he goes on: "I think Lockhart's lot killed him. I think they know something that I've just figured out myself."

"You think Lockhart killed Stan Shunpike?" Keats asked, arching his mousy eyebrows. Harry sees that Sirius is watching him very closely, but he looks at Keats himself. Keats says, "I've been attending Lockhart's meeting: he's not mentioned any such thing." Harry thinks back to the meeting he'd witnessed, in by Invisibility Cloak... Had Keats there? Or was he recruited as a double agent later on? It doesn't matter. All that matters is that Harry points blame to a wizard without it being himself.

"How comfortable is Lockhart's half-assembled army with the idea of murder thus far, Mr Keats? You think Lockhart could really tell the group if he killed a man himself, with the group's support?" Keats hesitates, his glassy eyes flickering from left to right as he digests the thought, and then he leans back in his chair, giving a small inclination of his head. _You should feel guilty for that. Why don't you?_ Harry steels his jaw. "Voldemort is a very careful man, wouldn't you guys say? Throughout the First War, he was focused on strategy, patience... He took a lot of time to do everything, particularly to pick out his servants. A lot of those he branded with the Dark Mark are the cream of the crop - some of the highest ranking wizards in society, in positions in the Ministry or with a lot of money and rank. Stan Shunpike was a stupid half-blood that came out of Hogwarts with a NEWT in History of Magic and a handful of shitty OWL scores, and he didn't know the difference between his backside and the spout of a teapot. I don't say this to denigrate him or to speak ill of the dead: I'm saying something that people who knew him in this room could only confirm - Oliver? Charlie? Tonks?"

All three of them look at each other, sharing glances across the room, and then they each look back to Harry.

"He was crap at school," Tonks admits quietly. "He only got that NEWT because he cheated on the exam."

"He was alright on a broom," Oliver says. "But he wasn't great or anything. He was even on the Ravenclaw Quidditch team for half a season, until he took that Bludger to the back of his skull and Madam Pomfrey banned him."

"Charlie," Harry asks, his hands resting on the edge of the table in front of him. "Would you say Stan Shunpike would have anything to offer Voldemort and the Death Eaters?" Charlie drums his burned and scarred fingers on the edge of the table, seeming to consider the question, and then he slowly shakes his head.

"He was the conductor of the Knight Bus, I suppose, but everyone knows no one lasts in that job. You bang your head too many times, or you get caught up in Muggle traffic. He didn't know much about anything, like you said, and I don't think he had any hidden skills... What are you saying? That he wasn't really a Death Eater?" Every head whips in Harry's direction, and he inhales. He could tell them all, he supposes: tell them all that Harry burned him with a cigarette and stabbed him twice with the knife tucked inside his belt... But he's not quite that mad yet.

"No, I think he really was a Death Eater. I think Voldemort is forgetting his patience a little bit, actually: I think he's panicking." There are murmurs throughout the room, and people seem confused, so Harry says, "Voldemort killed two of his own this summer, Igor Karkaroff and Lucius Malfoy." Intentionally, Harry keeps his gaze away from Narcissa. "Why would he do that?"

"Because they betrayed him!" Moody snaps, shambling forwards. "You're just a boy, Potter, what do you-"

"Alastor," Harry says, sharply. Moody actually recoils slightly, his real eye widening slightly, his false one revolving at speed in its socket. "Leave your insults for after the meeting, please. But please, tell the room: how has Voldemort dealt with betrayals in the past? In the First War?"

"He killed them! Just like this, he killed them, left the Dark Mark above their heads."

"Just like this? Really? Lucius and Karkaroff - they died in a way you'd seen before?" Moody's mouth closes. He stares at Harry for a second, and Harry glances around the table, his gaze settling on Snape. "Professor, can you describe for us the state of Karkaroff and Lucius' bodies, please? I'm not doing this for no reason, I swear. This is important." Snape's impassive expression fades for a second, revealing a curled lip and an expression of mild disgust, but then understanding seems to pass through his dark eyes, and he stands to address the room.

"Lucius and Igor were found on their backs, each with blood clinging to their clothes, but they weren't waiting in piles of their own blood. Each had a vicious wound in the centre of their chest, as if attacked by some sort of wolf or bear: teeth had torn through the flesh and bone with an apparent savage ease, and both were almost entirely exsanguinated."

"No blood at all?" Harry asks. He tries to keep the image away from the forefront of his mind: he's imagined it before, of course, but he'd never known for certain how Lucius had looked when he was dead, and now... This isn't the time to think about it. This isn't the time. "In either of them?"

"Only what little remained on their clothes, and that was still wet when we arrived." Harry thinks of Snape having bloodied cuffs after coming away from the bodies - had he reached to check Lucius' pulse, maybe, despite the injuries? Out of pure instinct, and emotion? "Please, Potter, we are all rapt. Do elucidate on your theory for the rest of the class."

"If you'll sit down, sir, I shall." Snape's lip twitches, and he seats himself as gracefully as a prince. Bastard. "A few years ago, I found out I was a Parselmouth, and I ended up accidentally unlocking a library in the Slytherin Common Room that had been forgotten for hundreds of years. Not a foot had stepped inside since the 18th century, from what Lindon Sartorius and Cecilia Hayworth could find..." A pause, and then Harry says, "I knew otherwise, but I chose not to correct them at the time. When exploring the room at night, I found this stuck in the back of an old desk - an old doodle left behind by an old student. Another Parselmouth, it turns out. He actually came to Hogwarts in 1938." He hears McGonagall gasp, her blue eyes wide, her hand over her mouth. Harry pulls the folded piece of paper out of his pocket, pushing it across the table to Dumbledore, who carefully examines it. "At the time, I was just a kid, and I thought it was a cool drawing. A snake coming out of a skull."

"This is Tom Riddle's handwriting, certainly," Dumbledore says quietly, tracing the half-scribbled out words: his well-manicured thumb nail comes to rest on the word that Harry had puzzled over: anima. "You had no idea what you held in your hands."

"None at all, sir." Harry looks around the room, at the pale, uncertain faces. "You see, the way Lucius and Karkaroff died is connected to this piece of paper. There are a few words here that I didn't understand, but they're centred around one that I did know. Anima. Latin for mind, or soul, but not the kind of thing we'd use for animating something in Charms or Transfiguration. This word would be used for something deeper, more powerful. I don't know how, but it's my theory that when Voldemort brands one of his Death Eaters with the Dark Mark, he's creating a link between them."

There's sudden talk all around the room: Moody is grumbling something, the historians are leaning in and speaking conspiratorially, and Narcissa Malfoy looks like she's about to cry: Sirius slams his hand down hard on the table, and silence reigns again.

"I think Voldemort can stay immortal via his servants. As long as some of them are still alive, he can cling on. And if he needs to draw power to himself, if he needs to gain energy quickly... He can cannibalize their life force, their magic, and use it to fuel his own. The lack of blood in Karkaroff and Lucius... Maybe it was symbolic, or maybe it was part of the ritual, but I'm sure Voldemort has already done this with some kind of snake." _You should see the guy lately_ , he wants to say, but he doesn't want to upset anybody in the room any more than he already has: he thinks of Voldemort's shining skin in the vision he'd had last year, his sharpened teeth, the new shape of his jaw... "Professor Dumbledore, you probably know more about this than me."

Harry sits down, and Dumbledore stands, his expression very serious.

"Harry is right," he says, very slowly. Gravity weighs down his every word, and even though Dumbledore is speaking, Harry can feel other people's gazes on him. Molly and Arthur Weasley are holding hands where they sit together, their expressions serious ( _where are the twins, Ron and Ginny? Did she leave them at home alone, or are they outside?),_ but Molly keeps looking at Harry as if she's about to murder him by motherhood. "In the past decade, I've devoted some time to piecing together the life of Tom Riddle - that is to say, the life of Voldemort before he took on that name. One of his focuses was on a particular kind of magic that enabled one to embed a piece of one's soul, one's magic, in a physical object... This would imbue the caster with a sort of immortality: he could not truly die, because a tether was keeping him to this world. I found an early experiment of his, a diary he had at school, where he seemed to dip into this magic-

"It was strange to me, I confess, to see that he never attempted to make another. Looking at these scribblings, however, of a younger man, it is quite clear to me that Harry is right. We would have to test the links, but Voldemort may well be tied to his Death Eaters."

"Then we should kill them all, Headmaster?" Snape asks; his tone is slightly sardonic, but his expression is serious. Had Snape killed anyone in the war, Harry wonders? "If it is Death Eaters that allow the Dark Lord his immortality, then those links must be severed."

"There is undoubtedly a way to do this without bloodshed," Dumbledore says.

"Without bloodshed?" Moody demands, his angry gaze now turned on Dumbledore rather than on Harry. "Really? This is war, Albus! You can't really-"

"My husband had that mark!" Narcissa says, voice uncharacteristically sharp with anger. "You think these men incapable of change?"

"I think a Death Eater dead is better than one alive, no matter how much they claim to change."

"How dare you! In my own house-"

"I think you'll find it's my house, Cissy."

"You stay out of this!" Quickly, the room is awash with voices, each trying to speak over the other, and Harry stands from the table, leaving the paper with Dumbledore and leaving the room. The Weasley children aren't out in the corridor; they must have stayed at home, with Fred and George in charge. His hands in his pockets, Harry wanders through the corridors of 12 Grimmauld Place, finally stepping into the library, where the dampening charms block out the distant sounds of yells and shouts in the dining room downstairs. Sirius probably spent a lot of time in here as a child and a teenager, Harry guesses, if his parents yelled as much as he's heard. He walks over to the window, looking down into the street.

Muggle cars are parked along the pavements, but this is a one-way road into a small cul-de-sac, and in the middle of the room some Muggle children are kicking around a football. Through the enchanted window, Harry can't hear a thing, but he imagines that they're laughing and calling to each other as they run back and forth.

Behind him, he hears the door unlatch, then click shut. He doesn't bother to turn, and simply keeps his gaze on the window: the reflection is quite clear, as the evening light outside is warm, but not bright. Dumbledore's thumbs are loosely settled on the sides of his belt. "Couldn't stand all the noise and bother?"

"It did seem a bit too much," Dumbledore admits, and he begins to walk toward the window, but Harry waves him off and gestures to the soft seats of the library. Dumbledore sits down in an old, comfortable armchair, and Harry settles on a small stool. Beside them, the fire crackles into action, immediately sending a pleasant rush of heat into the room, even though it hadn't been especially cold. Dumbledore crosses his legs over each other, revealing that he's wearing socks emblazoned with pink flamingos, and he interlinks his fingers upon his knee. "How long have you known about this, Harry?"

"Not very long," Harry says quietly. "I was thinking from the beginning of the summer, and trying to work it out in my head. Then I was going through some old letters in my albums, and I found that piece of paper. When Stan died..." _When I killed him, you mean._ "I guess it just slid the last piece into place. I'm sorry I didn't tell you, sir, I guess I was just hoping someone would prove me wrong in the course of explaining, you know?"

"A hope dashed, I'm afraid, my boy." Dumbledore sighs softly, and Harry shakes his head slightly, looking away from him. All those overlapping voices had been impossible to listen to, but now, in the silence of the library, he almost wishes for them. "It's quite alright. They'll calm soon: we have news to take from Mr Keats."

"About Gilderoy Lockhart?" Harry inhales slightly, then looks back to Dumbledore. "Do you think I'm wrong? About him killing Shunpike? I thought it made sense, but if Keats doesn't think so-"

"We can hardly say," Dumbledore says quietly. Behind his glasses, his blue eyes are as piercing as ever, and when he meets Harry's gaze, Harry doesn't allow himself to look away. His Occlumency, he hopes, is sufficient - how easy is wandless, non-verbal Legilimency? Could Snape and Dumbledore possibly do it so easily? "You may be right, in other ways. It may be another Death Eater betraying his master, or even a Muggle. Such a life taken... It's a great shame." Does he know? Does he suspect, even?

Harry has no idea. How could Harry know?

"Do you really think there's a way around-" Harry hesitates, and then says, "What Snape said, sir, about killing them all...?"

"We must find one," Dumbledore says. "Taking a life, Harry, whether that life belongs to a friend or an enemy, a Death Eater or not... It takes its toll not only upon one's mind, one's conscience, but upon one's very life force - upon one's very magic. One of the steps Voldemort must have taken in order to approach this sort of magic was to kill someone. It creates a split in the soul, Harry, damage that can never be undone. There is no greater crime than murder."

"What about letting murders happen?" Harry asks. Dumbledore's gaze flicks to his face, and he says, "If I were to let Voldemort keep going... He'd kill so many more people. The Death Eaters-"

"They're still people, my boy, regardless of their crimes," Dumbledore says quietly. He says this with more sadness than anger, and Harry looks down at the richly patterned carpet of the room, thinking about Stan Shunpike's desperate, wet gasp, the cry he'd let out when Harry's cigarette had sizzled against his skin, the feel of the knife in his hand, hot blood against his fingers...

"Yeah," Harry whispers. "They are."

**ϟ** **~ THE LERNAEAN HYDRA ~** **ϟ**

Adrian's mouth draws away from Harry's, and Harry groans as he realizes there's a string of saliva collecting their mouths. Adrian lets out a sudden bark of laughter, and they break apart, both wiping their mouths, Adrian with his sleeve and Harry with a handkerchief. Harry leans against the alley wall, pushing the handkerchief back in the pocket of his jeans, and Adrian looks at him from where he leans himself, his back against the fire escape of the next building. "How did your meeting go yesterday?"

"Okay," Harry says, shrugging his shoulders. "We got some stuff done, I guess. It's just to do with Remus and Sirius' business, so it's not anything interesting." When they'd got home last night, Sirius and Remus had apparently been desperate to avoid the topic of Voldemort's soul magic, and instead had each asked him about a thousand questions apiece about who Adrian King might be. Harry had deftly avoided the majority. Now, he turns his head, looking up at the setting sun as the evening gets on. What's going to happen now, he has no idea.

Keats had fed back about Lockhart's plans, which were mostly about arranging times where people could be trained in self-defence and could plan out strategies if Death Eaters attacked Diagon Alley - ways to evacuate people safely, ways to take down Death Eaters, et cetera... People had spit on the idea a lot, but Harry had actually been kind of impressed, even if Lockhart has tried to kill him.

He's not the same man that went into Azkaban, Harry knows.

"Harry?" Adrian pats him on the arm, and Harry turns to him.

"Sorry. I was miles away - what was it you said?"

"I said I'm a Sagittarius," Adrian says, mildly. "I was asking what your sign was."

"You believe in that stuff?" Harry asks, thinking of the Sybil Trelawney impression Tracey Davis had done when she'd made the mistake of mentioning she was an Aries in class.

"No, it's a pretence for conversation between snogging," Adrian answers, and Harry feels himself laugh.

"I'm a Leo, I think." Adrian frowns slightly, his eyebrows lowering.

"A Leo? When's your birthday?"

"The 31st."

"Of July? That's barely two weeks away! Why didn't you say?" Harry shrugs his shoulders helplessly, and Adrian grins at him, leaning against the wall beside him, their shoulders aligned. "Aren't you going to have a party?"

"A party?" Harry repeats. The idea is bizarre - he's never had a birthday party before, and it's never really occurred to him that it might be an option. Remus and Molly had both baked him cakes last year, and he'd blown out candles and unwrapped presents, but a party? What would a party for him even consist of? "Oh, um, no. I- To be honest, Adrian, I've never had one." He sees the horror pass over Adrian's face, and he's quick to say, "Sirius and Remus aren't against it or anything! It's just that, uh, my other aunt and uncle used to have custody of me. They didn't really, uh, like me much. I never celebrated my birthday until I went to school up North."

"I'm sorry," Adrian says immediately. He says it quickly, but not unfeelingly: Harry doesn't think he imagines the slight anger in his features - anger at these relatives of Harry's Adrian doesn't even know. "That's just so... Shitty."

"Tell me about it." There's a pause between them, and Harry thinks that Adrian is going to bridge the gap and kiss him, but he doesn't: instead, his hand entwines with Harry's, and he leans back against the wall beside him, turning towards the sunset. Adrian's hand is dry and warm in Harry's own, and he doesn't pull away, but settles into the silence between them.

That night, when Harry goes home, he writes to Florean Fortescue, and asks to make a booking. Outside his window, a shooting star falls, and instead of thinking about wishes, he only thinks about death.


	109. Year Five: Screaming For Ice Cream

**_A/N: Just a note - in this fic, the Order of the Phoenix knows Snape was almost prosecuted as a Death Eater, but don't necessarily know he was one. He feeds information about Voldemort directly back to Dumbledore, who relays it from a "source" to the Order. By no means does the Order think Snape is an active Death Eater today._**

"Happy birthday!" Adrian says, and Harry grins at him. The sun is half-shining down, refracting through the light grey drizzle of the afternoon and leaving rainbows to burst across the sky. It's like the weather can't decide what it's going - even with the rain, the day itself is comfortably warm, though the humidity is uncomfortable and stifling. Adrian is dressed in a t-shirt and loose shorts, but sweat makes his hair cling around his scalp, and his skin has a slight sheen to it as he gives Harry a hug. Harry draws away, and he sticks his hands into his pockets, looking at the other boy. "By the way, uh, how old are you?"

"Fifteen," Harry says, shifting his hands in his pockets and feeling the weight of his cigarettes, a pen, his wand, his wallet. Adrian's eyes widen slightly.

"Shit, really?" He blinks a few times, hand going up to draw through his hair, the thickly blond locks giving way as his fingers comb through them. "I'm sixteen in two months, but I thought you were older." Harry raises his eyebrows slightly, glancing down at Adrian's feet and then looking up to meet his gaze again; there's a height difference of almost a foot between them, and when Adrian realizes what he's referring to, he gives Harry a shove. "Oh, shut up. Short people can be older."

"Hear that, Sirius?" Remus asks mildly, seeming pleased with himself as he puts his hands in the pockets of his loosely worn jacket, worn for the rain rather than to stave off the cold. He and Sirius have only just caught up, and Harry chuckles. "You can be shorter than me _and_ older than me."

"I don't want to go for lunch with the kids anymore," Sirius says immediately. "We'll get separate tables. Actually, you guys go to the restaurant - we'll go to that Wetherspoons around the corner." Remus winces, and Sirius laughs quietly. He puts out his hand to shake Adrian's, and Adrian takes it easily, stepping forwards to shake Remus' too, and Harry glances at the restaurant.

Remus had picked it, in the end, as Harry hadn't had any idea about any of the Muggle restaurants in town - it's a small, simple place with narrow windows and stone floors, set inside an old building that reminds Harry of Hogwarts, a little bit. On one wall, there's a mural of a dinner that happened 500 or 600 years ago, a wedding between two families, and their crests are both carved into the stone over the cheerfully roaring fireplace. Despite the fact that the fire is lit, it's by no means too warm inside, and the four of them sit down beside a window, Adrian and Harry on one side of the table, Remus and Sirius on the other.

"Ah, Sirius!" says a female voice, and they look up. She's a tall woman with black hair that comes down to her mid-back, and she kisses Sirius on each of his cheeks. As she sets menus in front of each of them, she says, "Oh, and you must be Remus... And that makes you Harry Potter!"

"Yes, Ma'am," Harry says politely, nodding his head and smiling. The menu in front of him is bound in leather, and beneath an etching of a lion asleep on a rock is the restaurant's name: The Lion's Rest, written in a looping script of gold.

"Such a pleasure to meet you," she says, putting out her hand to shake. "My name is Xiao Chang - you know my niece, Cho?" Harry stands to shake her hand, giving a nod of his head. Her gaze flits to Adrian as she draws her hand back, and she says, "Do you go to school with Harry?"

"No, Mrs Chang, I live here in London. I go to Fairhill." She nods, a knowing look in her eyes as she glances to Harry, and then she claps her hands together, looking at the four of them.

"What can I get you boys to drink?" After they give their orders (Xiao doesn't have a notebook, and seems content to remember each drink off the top of her head), she gives them a warm smile and heads off toward the bar. Adrian leans forwards, looking at Sirius curiously. "You know the owner?"

"Yeah, me and Xiao go way back," Sirius says, grinning. "Her sister went to school with us. She was a few years below us... What house was she, Moony?"

"Jing? Ravenclaw, I think. Maybe Slytherin... No, she _was_ Ravenclaw, remember, she beat James to the Snitch one time, so she must have been on their team for-" Remus seems to come to his senses, and abruptly says, "Lacrosse."

"What's a Snitch?" Adrian asks, but before Harry can say anything, Remus already has a lie on his tongue.

"Stupid public school rules," Remus says dismissively, waving his hand and shaking his head. "Anyway, Xiao didn't have the grades to get in, so her parents sent her to a more normal boarding school. We used to sneak out sometimes, and occasionally we'd take outings out there. It was an all-girls school, so Sirius and James - that was Harry's father, Adrian - used to adore having all of them fuss over them." Sirius grins, looking very pleased with himself, and Harry sniggers. Adrian grins a little, leaning back in his seat.

"How did you get over there? If it was a few hours away?" Harry worries for a second that it's going to be another difficult answer, but Sirius is already laughing.

"I got my motorcycle when I was fifteen or so, so we used to go on that! I'd drive, Remus would be on the back of the bike, and we used to shove James and Peter into the sidecar. James was always short, like Harry here, and Peter was pudgy, but he wasn't very tall, so they fit in quite nicely. We drove all around Scotland, when we had a weekend we could spare. Even got stopped by the police once or twice!" Sirius lets out a bark of laughter, slapping his hand upon his knee, and Remus chuckles quietly, shaking his head. It seems easier for Sirius to talk about Peter than it used to be - he brushes him off as if he's just another friend dead from the war, and it's only when they talk in more detail that he seems to get upset.

"How did that go?" Harry asks sardonically. "I assume you didn't have a license?"

"Oh, Peter used to be excellent with police," Remus says seriously. He has a faraway look in his eyes, as if remembering this specific incident in detail. "You have no idea, Harry, the stuff he got us out of... The first time we got caught it was because Sirius had lost one of the tyres, and we went straight off the road. No serious injuries, but Sirius got knocked out, and none of us knew how to drive. Peter flagged down a police car, and not only got him to drive us all back to the school, but convinced him not to try to contact any of our parents or staff. I can't remember what it was he said - I think he told him Sirius was a cousin of the Duke of York, and that the four of us had evaded his bodyguard."

Sirius laughs, grinning to himself. "It was a good story when I was laid up in the Infirmary the next day. He had my whole genealogy laid out, and he sat in the front with the copper as James and Remus kept quiet in the back with me, making sure I was fine and then keeping me quiet once I was conscious."

Harry looks at Adrian, who meets his gaze, and then the two of them start laughing: even though Harry has no doubt they're not hearing the full story, given how much magic is probably being cut out, it's absolutely ridiculous, and Harry has no idea what idea Adrian must have about how posh they are, even though they definitely come across as quite normal. Adrian doesn't seem to mind, though, and although Harry feels a little on edge, trying to act normal when they have to keep everything secret from a Muggle, it's actually really nice to be sat with both him, and Remus and Sirius.

"Oh, by the way, I got you something," Adrian says, and he pushes a bag across the table to Harry. "Happy birthday." Harry smiles, reaching into the bag and pulling it open. The parcel inside is neatly wrapped in rainbow paper, and Harry carefully opens it up. It's a white t-shirt emblazoned with a very simple text in black: **FRANKIE SAYS RELAX**.

"Cheers," Harry says, with a grin, and he sets the t-shirt aside. It's almost a shame he can't wear t-shirts at Hogwarts - he'd love to explain it to Draco and the other Slytherin boys.

**ϟ** **~ THE LERNAEAN HYDRA ~** **ϟ**

"See you later, Adrian!" Harry says, waving as they part ways, and he falls into step between Sirius and Remus as they begin walking toward the Leaky Cauldron. "Thanks for that, Sirius."

"It's okay," Sirius says, grabbing Harry around the shoulder and leaning on him. Harry's getting a little taller now, but Sirius, short as he is, is still two inches or so taller. Given what they keep telling him about his dad, though, Harry is half-worried he's not going to get any closer to Sirius in height, let alone overtake him. "Sorry we couldn't invite him to your party, but at least we had lunch with him." Harry inhales slightly, looking at his watch. It's coming up to five o'clock, and although most people aren't going to arrive until six, they'd decided to go straight to Florean Fortescue's.

Fortescue had been delighted to host a birthday party for Harry, and he'd initially he'd sent out just a few invitations, but Fortescue had insisted if Harry wanted to make a real bonanza out of it, he could, and Sirius had told him he wouldn't come if there weren't at least fifty people. Harry grins a little just thinking about it, but... Why would anybody-?

Dudley had never really had birthday parties. It had always been trips to the zoo or to the rugby or something, given that he'd never had many friends beyond Piers Polkiss and some of the local thugs. What is it going to be like? Any invitation Harry had to a birthday party at primary school was always quickly snatched out of his hand, and given that they're all at boarding school, such things aren't normally worth organising.

"I need to run back to the flat," Sirius says suddenly. "Just realized I forgot something! You guys go on ahead, I'll catch up."

"Right," Remus says, and Sirius runs quickly down the street ahead of them, making a quick left turn into a side street; he's put on a lot of weight in the past year, filling out his face properly again and making sure he's no longer so gaunt, as well as packing on some muscle. Two years ago, straight out of Azkaban, he couldn't have run like that without later collapsing with exhaustion. "How are you feeling about the party?" Remus' smile is soft, and as he speaks, he very gently touches over the back of Harry's hair.

"I feel okay. Excited, but just... Nervous. What if nobody comes?"

"People will come," Remus assures him quietly. There's so much confidence in the words that they genuinely do soothe some of Harry's anxiety away, and he looks forwards. Remus has put on weight in the past year or so too, even if the change isn't as dramatic as the one in Sirius. Snape makes him Wolfsbane every month, and Harry doesn't know where Remus spends his transformations, because he doesn't usually spend them in the flat, but they seem easier on him these years.

"Last night, I was thinking about it... Back after Sirius was pardoned, I was pretty terrible to you," Harry says. He speaks very quietly, but he knows that Remus will pick it up. "I didn't realize at the time, I know, that you were a werewolf, but even after. I don't know, how hard it was for you to be around people who understood, let alone a kid. I know you wouldn't have been able to take care of me."

"I didn't tell you this at the time," Remus says very softly, even more quietly than Harry. "But I did try. I wanted to be in your life, even if all I could do was visit a few times a month, when the moon was at its weakest. But Albus wouldn't tell me where you lived immediately, and he said he'd write to your Aunt and Uncle, to ask. They destroyed every letter he sent them." There's a heavy pit in Harry's stomach, and he can feel his blood run cold with a distant fury.

Remus stops walking, puts his hands on Harry's shoulders - even if he overpasses Sirius, Harry knows, he'll never be as tall as the lanky figure of Remus Lupin. Remus looks seriously at Harry with his tired, grey eyes, and says, "I want you to understand, Harry, that everything Sirius and I do, everything, is always done with you in mind. Even the stupid things - especially the stupid things, at times. What Sirius did, when he went after Peter, it was insane, and ill-conceived, and he was mad at the time, but as much as it was about revenge, it was about protecting you. And when I gave up, after Dumbledore's third letter to the Dursleys was burned... I suppose I convinced myself that if they were so opposed, not even knowing that I was a werewolf, it was best for you. I'm sorry. I wish I could go back, Harry, and make everything the way it should be - make it so Peter and James and Lily are telling you their own stories instead of me and Sirius telling them, but I can't. All Sirius and I can do now is love you as best we can."

Harry throws his arms around Remus, and they hug tightly.

The walk to Fortescue's isn't a long one - they move through the Leaky Cauldron, which is beginning to get busy with parents on their school shopping trips, and then they move through the wall in the back alley. Harry leads the way, with Remus slightly behind him, and he takes hold of the door to the shop, hearing the bell tinkle above their heads as they step over the threshold. Looking around the room, though, it is completely empty - there aren't yet any decorations up, and no one has arrived for the party, but there isn't even a sign of Fortescue himself.

"Mr Fortescue?" Harry asks. "Are you there?"

There's a sudden bang from above their heads, and Harry looks up to see hundreds of balloons released, hovering a few feet above his and Remus' heads as confetti and streamers rain down from above: once Harry looks around the room again, he sees that every seat in the restaurant is filled, and there's a loud shout of, " **SURPRISE**!" All Harry can feel is the huge grin on his face as a flash catches his eye. He looks to see Sirius on his knees, the camera in his hands, and he feels himself laugh.

**ϟ** **~ THE LERNAEAN HYDRA ~** **ϟ**

"So what we did was write everyone on your guest list and told them to come an hour and twenty minutes earlier, so they could surprise you," Sirius explains over a chocolate sundae, and Harry laughs, looking down at his own banana split. "The camera I found in the attic a few days back. I used to take a lot of photos back at Hogwarts, thought I'd take it up again."

"Thanks, Sirius," Harry says quietly. Setting his spoon down, he begins to walk around the room again, talking to different people; from speakers in the corners of the ceiling, the Weird Sisters sing about escapades with ghouls, and some people are even dancing. Most of the people in Harry's year are here, even though Harry privately had worried people would think he was too old for a birthday party in an ice cream parlour, and most everyone greets him warmly. "Mrs Longbottom! How are you doing?"

"Oh, I'm very well, thank you," Augusta says, beaming. Next to her, Neville sits, looking a little uncomfortable.

"Neville, happy birthday for yesterday," Harry says, giving him a grin, and Neville smiles warmly. "Did you like the gloves?" Harry had been worried that Neville would feel overshadowed, coming to a party so close to his own birthday, but Neville doesn't seem to mind at all.

"Oh, they're great, Harry. Our Venomous Tentacula is teething at home, and they're really helping." Neville is a different boy when he smiles: most of the time he looks so uncertain, and a little bit sad. Harry just wishes he could get him to smile more often... And part of the problem is maybe that his grandmother is the only person he's talking to at Harry's birthday party. "Uh, Neville, Hannah Abbott and Susan Bones are actually having a conversation about Herbology with Hermione over there - maybe you could go and sort it out? Hermione's smart, but she doesn't know plants like you do." Neville looks to Augusta for permission, and she gives him an airy nod: immediately, Neville all but sprints across the room.

"Call me Augusta, Harry," she says immediately, and Harry grins at her. "That Tentacula is a dastardly thing, I can tell you. It's good that Neville loves his plants so much, but it doesn't often feel like they love him back." Harry laughs.

"Yeah, I get what you mean. I think he's kind of drawn to the worst of them, though."

"Like a moth to a flame," Augusta says, shaking her head, and she looks across the room, smiling fondly. Susan and Hannah hadn't been discussing anything of the sort, but from across the room Harry can see that Neville is talking animatedly and almost confidently about his subject, and all three girls are being very attentive. "You're very good for him, you know, Harry. Thank you, for inviting us."

"I couldn't imagine a birthday party without both of you here, Ma'am. You've taught me half of what I know."

"Pish-posh," she says immediately, but Harry can tell she's very flattered. "You go on now, and have a good birthday. I'm going to go chat to Healer Tonks." Harry smiles, stepping past Augusta as she goes to Andromeda and Ted. In the corner of the room, talking quietly with Theodore Nott and staying very close to his mother, is Draco. Both him and Narcissa are dressed in mourning black, and Harry had sent the invitation out of politeness, not expecting them to come. When she sees him, though, Narcissa smiles very sweetly, and she puts out her arms to pull Harry into a hug.

"Thank you, Harry," she murmurs against the top of his head. "It's best he has excuses to go out." Harry looks to Draco as Narcissa draws away, and he offers the other boy a small smile, which Draco weakly returns. Harry's never seem him look so bad, even when he's been confined to the Infirmary or to bed with sickness. Draco is not just pale, but pallid, his eyes red from lack of sleep and too much crying, and his normally healthy, pink lips are dry and chapped. Theo is talking to him very gently, more so even than usual, and Harry joins the conversation for a good twenty minutes before he keeps going around and saying his hellos.

It's then that Florean Fortescue brings out the cake, which Harry hadn't asked for (Remus and Sirius at work once more), and Harry stands in the middle of the room, frozen, as everyone sings him a loud " _Happy Birthday_ ", which Augusta Longbottom turns into a rendition of, " _For He's A Jolly Good Fellow_ " at the end. Harry stares at the fifteen candles on the ice cream cake, which depicts a basilisk most of the way through eating a lion, and Harry grins.

Sirius photographs him as he blows out the candles, and Fortescue delightedly begins cutting pieces out and handing them around to people - Harry hadn't known before last week that Fortescue and his wife had both been Slytherins when they were at Hogwarts fifty years ago, and the old man seems to take a lot of delight in the design on the cake.

"Photographs!" Sirius demands, clapping his hands together as he lets his camera hang around his neck. "You eat your cake, you lot - Harry, come outside with me and Moony, and we'll do some photos with just you before we do a big group one."

"Oh, _Sirius_ ," Harry groans, but Sirius is already dragging him by the sleeve of his jacket, chattering away, mostly to Remus, about it being Harry's only fifteenth birthday and they can't really let it go past without some pictures. Harry reaches out dramatically to Hermione and the twins as Sirius drags him outside, and they each give him a cheerful wave. Harry lets Remus position him in front of Fortescue's, facing the parlour with the street behind him, rolling his eyes as Remus "fixes" his hair by messing it up even more and does his best to ruffle his lapels. Remus then runs back to Sirius, and as Harry poses, he can see all the faces at the windows, watching.

There's a distant pop, and Harry tilts his head, wondering where it had come from - there's an enchantment preventing Apparition right onto the main streets of Diagon Alley, in case of Splinching or Apparating directly into the course of a cart or something, so it can't be that. Then he sees Sirius' eyes widen as the camera drops from his hands and thumps by its straps, with a flash, against his chest; he sees Remus drop limply to the ground as a stream of red light hits him right in the chest, and he whirls on his feet as if in slow motion, grabbing for his wand.

There are too many of them.

He's aware immediately that there are far too many of them for him to fight them off - behind him, Harry hears Sirius yell and then go silent, but he can't afford to turn around as he hears them step on his every side, surrounding him in a dark-robed circle. Death Eaters. Each of them wears a silver mask to hide his face, and their robes come right down over their shoes, but there are nearly thirty of them, and Harry can hear them laughing and talking to each other.

From the crowd in front of him, out steps Voldemort.

Harry's never actually faced this man. He's heard of him in so many different contexts, been told terrible stories about him, and even inhabited his own head, for a fleeting time, but he's never had Voldemort right in front of him. As he feels the slight pressure on his Occlumency shields (because the pressure, the threat, was never supposed to be this close), he is struck by the thought that he always imagined Voldemort would be taller.

Voldemort stands at six feet tall, but the image Harry had in his head had been positively cartoonish, he realizes how - he'd thought of him as being maybe seven or eight feet, with white, scaly limbs.

Voldemort is six feet tall, and his eyes are red, with snake-like pupils: he has no hair, and he has the face of someone who used to be handsome, and doesn't care that times have changed. His jaw is a strange shape, and his nose is half the size it should be, collapsed into the skull like the snout of some snake-man; he wears a robe of deepest black with a high collar. It's a battle robe, hugging close to his legs and his arms, with the skirt flowing only around his knees and showing the enchanted leggings that tuck right into his dragonhide boots.

For some reason, Harry had also thought Voldemort would be barefoot.

"It's a pleasure to meet you at last, sir," Harry says, loudly enough that it cuts through the talk of the Death Eaters and leaves all of them abruptly silent. They're staring at him, all of them, and even behind their masks, Harry is certain many of their mouths are open. How many of them has Harry met? How many of them write him polite letters? How many of them have children at the very party behind him? Voldemort's expression shows mild amusement, his wand held at an angle out from his side; Harry copies his position. "I've heard so much about you, but I feared we'd never meet face to face."

"He mocks you, my lord!" says a masked woman with a sudden desperation, her hood down and her black hair coming out from behind her mask in a thickly curled cascade, but before she can continue, Voldemort holds up his other hand in a graceful push to silence. His fingers are smooth as marble, and his fingernails are long and polished to a shine: even as he quiets the woman, who Harry immediately knows as Bellatrix Lestrange, he keeps his gaze on Harry.

"We have, of course, met before, Harry. I hope I can call you Harry?" Voldemort's voice is high in pitch and almost ethereal, with magic seemingly woven into every word. Although he speaks at a normal volume, it seems to ring through Diagon Alley, and Harry feels like he could be heard thirty miles away. "Or have you forgotten?"

"And what should I call you, sir? I've heard you don't like your name being bandied about." Harry feels every hair on his body standing on end, and although he can feel the fear running cold in his blood and down the length of his spine, he keeps his voice as cold and calm as he can. He thinks of Lucius Malfoy's voice in a crisis, collected and cool, and he does his best to replicate it. Voldemort takes a step to the left, and Harry immediately mirrors him, taking a step to the right. Voldemort's mouth, which is nearly lipless and the same colour as the rest of his face, quirks into something almost like a smile.

"You're confident," Voldemort says, and he chuckles. "Don't you know, Harry, that you are about to die?"

"I hear that a lot," Harry admits. "It's stopped giving me too much pause."

"You've never heard it from _me_."

"Well, you know what they say, sir. Actions speak louder than words. Didn't go too well for you the last time, did it?" Harry hears many of the Death Eaters gasp or let out quiet exclamations, horrified that he would provoke their "lord" in such a way. Voldemort's eyes flash, and Harry dodges to the side as he flicks a sickly-green spell in his direction: he gets to his feet and now him and Voldemort are both standing, facing each other with their wands raised.

"You won't win this duel, Harry," Voldemort whispers.

"It doesn't matter," Harry replies. "You won't win this war." Voldemort's lips twist into a snarl, and the spell moves too quickly for Harry this time. He's already dodging, but he can read the spell on Voldemort's mouth, and when it hits Harry in the chest, it's not as cold as he thought it would be. _Avada Kedavra_ feels like sudden warmth that tingles on the skin, and the sensation lasts less than a second, because Harry's vision has already faded to black, and the last thing he is aware of is the sensation of falling.

**ϟ** **~ THE LERNAEAN HYDRA ~** **ϟ**

Harry is standing in a broad, white room. It is made of stone, and it is lightly furnished, but all of the colours are wrong: it seems unnaturally white. That colour should be black, he thinks, and this should be green. Where is he? He feels cold. No, he doesn't. He feels warm. What does cold feel like? This is the Slytherin Common Room.

Harry looks down at his feet, and it feels difficult just to turn his head, as if his joints need oiling: beneath him, in sickly shades of off-white, he looks down at a rug that should be in Slytherin colours. How strange. There is a grind of stone, and Harry looks up, seeing the portrait door open at the edge of the room.

Outside, in the corridor, it is neither white nor brightly lit: it is an expanse of black.

 _Go through the door_ , something tells him. Laughter rings in the room around him, ghostly and ethereal. A boy's laugh, but it's high.

"No," Harry says. His tongue is heavy.

 _Go_ , it tells him again, and he feels a shove against his back, making him stumble. It's a wrong touch, a sickly touch, a thousand times worse than a ghost walking through him, and Harry turns abruptly, his arm shooting out, but there's nothing for him to grab at. The laughter rings around the room again, and he reaches for the wand at his side, but it isn't there.

He is hot. He is cold. He is unarmed, and he is at risk.

Although his feet feel weighted down, he turns slowly in the centre of the room, eyes searching for whatever it is, and the laughter continues, continues. He looks to the mantelpiece, looks at the cream-coloured snake carved into it, and he grins. His teeth feel bloody. " _Open_ ," Harry hisses, the Parseltongue ringing through the room like a cold draught, and he hears the thing cry with horror as the wall moves just like it did when Harry was twelve, this time showing a long tunnel that leads up to the surface instead of an empty library. At the end of the tunnel, he sees light, real light, and _colours_.

Harry begins to run, and behind him, the ghostly thing screams its loss and its rage.

**ϟ** **~ THE LERNAEAN HYDRA ~** **ϟ**

Harry awakes to smoke and screams. Crowds of people are running around him, and he ignores them all. He scrambles from the floor, wand in his hand, and looks wildly around. The conductor of the Hogwarts Express is barking orders, his Scottish accent carrying in the streets, and people are obeying him, moving to the sides of the street and leaving the two black-robed bodies in the middle of the street. Harry runs forwards, pulling the mask off the first one and letting his fingers go to his pulse. He recognizes the man's face - he's a Nott, one of Theo's older uncles, well into his seventies. He hasn't a heartbeat, and when Harry leans back, he can see the mixture of blood and pink tissue soaking through the fabric of his robes; he'd hit the cobblestone much too hard to be pulled back up.

Harry hops over Nott's body and leans over the other one. This one is groaning, and when Harry pulls off his mask, he recognizes his face exactly. "Hi there, Marcus," he says, catching the wand from his hand as Flint tries to raise it up. "Twisted your ankle there, have you?" Flint lets out a moan of pain, looking at Harry with fear in his eyes, but when Harry pulls up the hem of his robes to have a look at the ankle, he realizes there's nothing he can do to get Flint moving right now.

Flint's kneecap is yellow and bloody and as far down as Flint's left leg goes, because Flint has Splinched himself and lost the rest of it.

"Healer!" Harry yells over his shoulder. He looks up, and he sees Andromeda Tonks coming at speed from Fortescue's, fighting through the Aurors trying to keep her back. "Healer Tonks, here, please. This is Marcus Flint: he's eighteen, he's Death Eater scum, and he's Splinched himself." As Dromeda gets to work on the leg, Harry leans right into Flint's ugly, troll-like face, and looks into his eyes. Flint looks terrified of him, and Harry says in a very slow, deliberate voice, "When you're in a Ministry cell tonight, awaiting trial, I want you to think about how I let you live. Do you know why I let you live, Flint?" Flint is breathing heavily, staring up at him. "Because it'll be more entertaining for me when Voldemort comes back and kills you himself." The tiny bit of colour left in Flint's face drains away, and Harry watches his head drop back onto the stone. "He's fainted, Drom. Too much pain."

"Righto, Harry," Andromeda says, focusing on the leg, and Harry stands. Aurors are beginning to arrive on scene, and Harry searches for Sirius. A Mediwizard is looking over Remus on a table that had been displaying cauldrons half an hour ago: he is limp, but the Mediwizard is calm and working carefully. Sirius is quite conscious and nervously standing next to him.

"Sirius!" Harry says, and Sirius turns to stare at him. His blue eyes are wide, and then he grabs for Harry clutching him tightly.

"He used the Killing Curse," Sirius says, putting his hands on Harry's hair, his cheeks, his neck, his shoulders. "How are you... You're alive, you're alive, but he-"

"Give me your camera," Harry says, cutting through Sirius' desperate talk. "I know you're shaken right now, but give it to me." Harry's order is clean and sharp, and it overrides Sirius' horror and cut-through grief: he pulls the camera from around his neck, and Harry makes his way over to the body of Canton Nott. The camera flashes as he takes a photograph of the old man's head surrounded in a cloud of sickly pink fluid, and Drom leans back so he can take a photo of the struggling Flint, too. His leg is looking better already.

"Potter!" says a voice, and Harry turns. Mad-Eye Moody limps towards him, giving him a once-over. "They said you were dead."

"I think I was. I got back up again." Harry speaks cleanly and sharply, and he immediately asks, "What can I do to help?" Just as Harry takes his death in his stride, as much as he can in the moment, Moody follows suit.

"Get into Fortescue's, have Tonks and Arthur Weasley take control in there. I need everyone sat down, and I need them all ready to give statements to us. That's an official declaration of the Dark Lord's return – you got pictures?"

"Of Nott and Flint here. None of the other Death Eaters, though." Moody clucks his tongue, but then he nods. He limps off, and Harry makes his way over to Fortescue's, but he sees the conductor talking with Dawn Hadworth, from the secondhand shop, and he stops with them.

"You guys are with Lockhart, right?" Harry asks. Immediately, Dawn's brown eyes widen, and the conductor looks at Harry with surprise. "You're doing a really good job keeping people calm. Sir—"

"My name's Billy," the conductor interrupts him. "Billy O'Neill."

"You should co-ordinate with Auror Moody, get everyone to give statements to him. This is a declaration of war – I think, anyway. We need to make sure the Ministry and the presses can't deny this."

"You were dead," Dawn says quietly. Does she have children, Harry wonders? He guesses so. "I saw the curse hit you."

"It hit me the first time too, Ma'am, I'm pretty sure of that." He doesn't have time to walk her through it, and he turns toward the ice cream parlour, making his way in. Immediately, he is best by voices, people yelling that no one will let them out of the parlour, and he jumps on top of a chair to address them all. Outside, the yells begin to die down, and everyone is anxious, but quiet.

 _Happy fucking birthday_ , Harry thinks to himself, bitterly, and he forces himself to keep his mind on business. He can feel sorry for himself later - right now, he needs to keep everyone else safe and on track.

**ϟ** **~ THE LERNAEAN HYDRA ~** **ϟ**

At the head of the table in the empty Grimmauld Place, Severus Snape hits alone, staring into the middle distance.

Severus had been there, at the Dark Lord's right hand, as he'd cast the curse: he had been powerless, unable to do a thing. He'd believed there would be only a meeting today, and had not known of the plan to accost Potter on the very day of his birthday, arriving in Diagon Alley, and he couldn't have reported it to Dumbledore, couldn't have done a thing.

When the Dark Lord had cast his spell, the green light had hit Potter soundly, and as his killer threw back his unnatural head and laughed, Severus had stood stock still, staring at the crumpling form of Harry Potter, as his fellows had Apparated from about him. He had acted once only a few were left, flicking his wand at Nott's head and softening the bone before tripping him with a Hex that had also caught Flint, making him yell out as he tried to Apparate himself. With little satisfaction, Severus had turned on his heel and Apparated back to Malfoy Manor, where the Dark Lord was already crowing his victory.

The Death Eaters had been dismissed but minutes later, and Severus had returned to Grimmauld Place, where soon the Order of the Phoenix would alight, broken with grief.

Severus feels that any moment he may well vomit: what had been the point, he wonders, in killing Nott? There had been no pleasure in it, and he could never kill every other Death Eater himself. There are too many, and he will be too easy to suspect: what chance has he, he wonders, to convince the Order of the necessity of it? If the Dark Lord is truly to be defeated, they must sever every last link he has...

The dead form of Harry Potter tumbling to the ground like a rag doll flits across Severus' mind, mocking him, taunting him, and he allows himself a second's weakness. He drops his forehead slowly down onto his hands, closing his eyes, and he wonders what he is to do. What are any of them to do, how that Potter is dead? The Order of the Phoenix might have been upset by Lucius' murder, but Potter had been more than a boy: he had been a symbol to them.

He's dead now, like Lucius, like Lily, like every connection Severus has ever dared to have, and he half-expects Albus will declare the war lost at once.

In the entrance hall, he hears the door slam open, hears the angry footsteps in the hall. Who is it first? Narcissa? Black and Lupin? Shacklebolt?

Severus stares, his lips slightly parted, as Potter walks into the room. It must be a trick, a Boggart, a ghost - Potter walks clumsily, and he drops to his knees before a wide vase and does precisely what Severus feels like doing: he grips the sides of it and retches. There's a spatter as his lunch hits the bottom of the vase, and Severus slowly stands.

He couldn't have done it. He couldn't have survived the curse... And yet he had, the first time. Albus had called it Lily's protection, and told Severus such a thing could never be replicated, but he must have been wrong. Potter is standing there, vomiting, and Severus feels euphoria soar within him, suddenly. Potter retches and retches, coughing, and then he looks at Severus, not moving from his kneeling position on the carpet.

"I had been informed," Severus says in a measured tone, as Potter meets his gaze, "that you were dead."

"People keep getting informed that," Potter says. He doesn't look like his father. Everyone tells Potter so, but Severus knows the face of James Potter better than his own, even after all these years, and he doesn't have that man's face, not like he has Lily's eyes. He's too thin, and his features don't carry enough cruelty in them. The hair is the same, perhaps, but arrogance doesn't shine from his pores as it did from his father's, even when he's being so stupid as to talk back to the Dark Lord himself. "It's not true."

"So I see," Severus says. Over the years, Potter has formed a rapport of sorts with him, and Severus wonders if he ought ever should have allowed it, but Potter has such an irritating wit to him... It does remind Severus of Lily, yes, but most of all, it reminds him that Potter is his own self, a vibrant soul that still shines, even though Lily's is gone. In the moment he had first realized that, he had hated himself anew for letting her die, for killing her in the way that he did by betraying the prophecy to the Dark Lord. But that had not been new. "Were you dead?"

"I think so," Potter says. He stares down into the vase' sickly contents, his expression blank. "The Killing Curse feels warm, when it hits you, and it tingles on the skin. We can add that to the text books." He lets out a short, crazed laugh, and there is a short pause. "I was in a white room, like a white version of the Common Room. There was something else in there with me, a poltergeist or... Or something. It kept laughing, pushing me to this black hole." Potter's eyes move as if he's searching his own memories, and Severus is rapt as he listens. This is not any normal after-death experience, after all - the Killing Curse had hit him. He had most certainly died. "I managed to beat it, I ran back to the life. I- I think if I hadn't, whatever it was... I get the feeling if I hadn't beaten it, it would have come back in my body. I think it was Voldemort, somehow."

Severus stares at the boy, this stupid, stupid boy who has faced Dementors, a basilisk, and now twice, the Dark Lord himself, and come out not only alive, but with a sarcastic comment waiting on his tongue.

He is saved from having to say anything by the sound of a commotion in the entrance hall, Order members now arriving in their dozens, and Severus knows he doesn't imagine the fatigue and reluctance on Potter's face as he stands and begins answering the hundreds of questions from the rest of the Order. Severus, for his part, is grateful that nobody's attention falls to him.

Nobody except Narcissa, who comes directly to him and falls into his arms. Severus allows the older woman her moment of desperate weakness, lets her clutch onto the fabric of Severus' robes and bury her face against his shoulder. Severus is not Lucius, he knows. He does not love Narcissa, and he is not broad or comforting or poetic or charming: he is a thin, ugly man with nothing but words that are too true and cut too deeply, but all that matters in this moment, to Narcissa, is that she can hold on tightly to him. He is uncomfortable, moreso even than he had been at Lucius' funeral, where at least he had the distraction of his own grief, but he does his best.

Gently, as gently as he is capable, he pats Narcissa's back, and murmurs quietly, "We all yet live."

"For how long?" Narcissa asks, but she doesn't want an answer from him. She lets her words linger in the air, and then she collects herself. She stands straight, raises her chin, schools her expression into the perfect, Pureblood mask of neutrality. As he looks into Narcissa's eyes, he thinks, _You miss him_. Narcissa's eyes reply what he knew they would, what they always do, _You miss him too_.

Together, they turn to Potter, and Severus wonders when Dumbledore will arrive, so that he might feedback what information he can to him.

 ** _A/N: Please comment if you have any thoughts or questions - I'd love to know where you guys think the story might be going, or how you think Voldemort will react when he discovers Harry's still alive. Thank you so, so much for reading, and I'll update as soon as possible!_**


	110. Year Five: What Is War?

**EARLIER THAT DAY**

It's a clear day, the skies above blue and cloudless, and there isn't so much as a whisper of wind. The mountains that overlook Hogsmeade tower over the hillside path that looks down over the village, and there is the soft sound of birdsong in the distance.

Evan Rosier stands alone, looking carefully around. According to Death Eater sources, Gilderoy Lockhart's troupe are holed up somewhere in the vicinity of Hogsmeade, so he has to take care, but he hunted boar as a child, on the grounds of the Rosier Manor in the North of England, and he hears even the slightest movements in the distance. It would be impossible for someone like Lockhart to take him by surprise; his senses are too carefully cultivated.

That aside, Lockhart is not Evan's current priority.

Making his steps carefully, Evan ensures he doesn't brush any undergrowth as he moves. He's using an old-fashioned hunting charm that keeps him hovering six or seven inches above the ground: it makes a platform around the hunter's feet, allowing him to move as he ordinarily would without worrying about leaving tracks or stepping on twigs. Silence is of the utmost importance, given what he is searching for.

He is not, alas, in his lord's graces, but his lord has trusted him with this particular task, and it is one in which Evan excels. Moving slowly through the thicket and woods upon the hillside, he searches carefully for evidence. Last year, the Acromantula that had for so long inhabited the Forbidden Forest had fled, moving away from the Hogwarts grounds and instead moving out into the magical woods of this small mountain range. The Forbidden Forest is kept within the Hogwarts grounds, an invisible barrier protecting the land from outside attack, but these forests are deeper and thicker, and have much nastier beasts within.

Ever more so, with the sudden emigration of the Hogwarts Acromantula.

Evan remembers the last war well, and they had alliances with giants, with werewolves - he had even heard rumours, just before the war had come to its abrupt close, that the Dark Lord was cultivating the interest of an actual dragon, speaking to it with the power of his Parseltongue. The Acromantula had been impossible to reach, buried as they were within the Forbidden Forest, but now they are in the mountains outside of the castle, where the forests are unfenced and unwarded... Well, they would most certainly be valuable.

"My lord," Evan had said, softly. "You would have me kill myself in this manner?" He had dropped his knees, dropped to the cool, stone floor of Malfoy Manor's ballroom, and bowed his head: "My apologies, my lord, if I have so displeased you, allow me to die here. I will land the blow myself, I offer only my humblest sorrow at having displeased you." His lord arched a naked brow, leaning back upon his throne, and Evan had spied the flicker of his serpent's tongue upon his lower lip, tasting the air, tasting for Evan's loyalty, perhaps.

"You shall not kill yourself, Evan," he had whispered. "When you discover evidence of the Acromantula's nests - the slightest bit of webbing that might lead to their king - return here, to me. We shall assemble a party, and I shall meet the spider king myself. Acromantula are strange beasts, but with the correct coaxing, we might make them our allies. I ask only of your tracking ability." The Dark Lord had stood, coming forwards, and Evan had bowed his head, his lips upon the leather toe of the tight boots fastened about his lord's feet: he had been so, so grateful. The mudblooded scum of the world, the blood traitors, think of the Dark Lord as some idle king, dressed as the traitor Dumbledore, with long skirts and wide sleeves, but for as long as Evan has known him, served him, the Dark Lord has dressed as a duellist, with leather clasps and robes designed for quick movement.

When the Dark Lord had gently cupped Evan's jaw, forcing him to meet his lord's red gaze, Evan had felt rushing excitement, adoration, and felt as he had at only seventeen, when he had first kneeled at this man's glorious feet.

Evan smiles as he ducks beneath a willow branch, feeling its weeping leaves brush his hair as he passes. He has reached the edge of a wide gully, carpeted thickly on its every side. Fifty feet below, he sees a stream winding through the dirt. Thanks to lacking rain, it is depleted, but in the winters, Evan imagines it is a powerful, white-washed river. He looks up to its mouth, where the stream comes from a crack in the grey-washed stone. Some twenty feet above that crack, however, is a cave mouth. He cannot see within, but webbing coats the area of stone around it as heavily as moss, and even as he watches, a brown monster of a spider, as large as a horse, slips within.

Excellent.

Turning on his heel, he makes his way as fast as he can back to the path. He shouldn't like to Apparate directly from here, where his magic might be tracked; better to do so nearer the village, where the evidence of his Apparition will blend in with the ghosts of other such spells. As he slips beneath a yew's wide umbrella, however, he hears the sudden crack of a branch, and he freezes at the noise as a rabbit might. Evan's very breaths are silent, and he hugs the trunk of the yew, listening carefully. These woods are heavy with magic, and any manner of beastie might have thought to track him, so it is vital he is quiet, that it might reveal itself.

There is another tell-tale crack, and Evan stiffens as he hears the underbrush give way, but then the offender passes him by at speed: a young boar, out in the woods despite the late hour of the morning, and Evan almost laughs to himself as he hear its clumsy rush down the hillside. Shaking his head, he takes a step out from the yew, and he feels his Hunter's Stealth charm give way. He loses his balance, his feet hitting the actual ground suddenly, and he stares down at his feet, taken quite by surprise.

What-

"Hello, Evan," says a smooth, theatrical voice. Evan looks up, staring at the face of Gilderoy Lockhart. He looks older than he did when Evan last saw him; Lockhart's hair is longer, tied at the back of his neck, like Lucius Malfoy's was at school, but much thicker, curlier. The wound Evan had given him some months ago has scarred, he sees: the mark runs in purple-pink over the left side of Lockhart's jaw, and he feels his lip twitch in satisfaction. As Lockhart purrs, "How good to see you!", arrogant even now, Evan grasps hold of his wand.

"You're looking well," says a voice to his left, and Evan's head whips toward it. Sara-Dean Smith is dressed in rider's robes, her hair hanging straight and loose about her youthful features.

"He is, isn't he?" says a third voice.

"Better than Chad, anyway." Two older women Evan doesn't know stand together, arm in arm, wands raised. How could they have done this? How could they all have come toward him like this, so silently? Evan raises his wand higher, but he knows already, feeling the oppressive magic of an anti-Apparation ward upon his skin, that it is too late.

 **~ ϟ ~ THE LERNAEAN HYDRA ~ ϟ ~**

"How can you possibly jump to the idea that this might mean war?" Molly snaps out, her tone so sharp that Kingsley actually recoils on the other side of the table, his eyes widening slightly. "It was terrorism, yes, but we can't jump to war. War means battles, it means the deaths of our children... The start of the last war was that skirmish on Henry's Walk, down in Cornwall, don't any of you remember? I remember! Arthur and I were actually there, which is more than I can say for you, Mad-Eye, or for you, Kingsley! And you, Hestia, you hadn't even passed your Auror training yet!" Harry watches her slap her hands upon the table, feeling his eyes sting with tiredness.

"This is unusual for He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named," Kingsley admits, his tone smooth and low and calm. "He would usually send his Death Eaters to kill somebody, but Harry is not a usual case. Harry, whether he means to be or not, is a symbol for the wizarding world: he ended the last war, and the intention was likely that he would begin this one."

"There hasn't been enough preparation on his part," Narcissa argues, keenly. Harry wonders where Draco is - in his room, perhaps? Or is he somewhere else entirely, somewhere away from Grimmauld Place, where he cannot attempt to eavesdrop? Hermione had stayed with her parents, immediately insisting they go home. "The last war, the Dark Lord spent years slowly accumulating resources, alliances, planting his men in the Ministry... Why would he jump so abruptly to a war?"

"Because people remember the first war," Cecilia Hayworth snaps, irritably; Harry can see the offence on Narcissa's face, from her angry eyes to her pointed nose, and he wonders if she's calling Cecilia a Mudblood in her head. "There are people already out there who will flock to his side, who would have considered Harry's death a signal that the war was over before it even began. He's meant to be dead."

"Cheers, Celia," Harry says. It's the first time he's spoken as everyone in the room has argued and argued, but before anyone can retort a hushed silence rings through the room. Dumbledore is here, with Flitwick at his side - McGonagall is nowhere to be seen. "Took you long enough. What, had something better to do?" Snape's hand moves so fast Harry can barely see it: the slap upside his head stings, and he lets out a hiss of pain... But even he would admit it was deserved.

"Have we been debating?" Dumbledore asks, his tone quiet and kind. "What are the sides, hmm? Was this a declaration of war, or not?" Harry turns his head slightly. Since Harry had taken a seat at the table, Snape had stood at his elbow, and now, Harry meets his gaze. Snape's expression is grim.

"It doesn't matter," Harry says quietly, while the hush is still in place. "I know this doesn't match with what he's done historically, but Celia is right. I am meant to be dead, and this was supposed to be a power play. We can argue what precisely started the second war after it's definitely over; this isn't the time to pro-actively write our history books." Harry stands up from his chair, flicking it under the table, and then says, "We break the connection with Voldemort's followers, we kill the man himself. That's the goal: everything else is irrelevant."

"Irrelevant?" Arthur asks. He looks positively betrayed, and Harry feels the guilt pit in his belly. "Harry, if this is war, it's war. There are no easy goals. Haven't you given a thought to how many people that You-Know-Who will kill?"

"Yeah," Harry says. "I have. But as for action... There's nothing we can do but fight." He slips out of the room, into the kitchen. He is unsurprised to see Sirius and Remus have followed him, and when Dumbledore steps inside a moment or two later, Harry says, "I've got something to talk to you about, sir. We'll want Professor Snape and Moody, too."

Dumbledore's expression is serious, but he gives a small nod of his head, and the six of them meet upstairs in one of the drawing rooms, where the windows are wide, and look down on the streets of Muggles below.

"What is it, Potter?" Mad-Eye asks. "Something about when you went down?" Harry nods his head. Sirius is pacing the room, unable to remain still, and Mad-Eye leans back against the unlit fireplace; Dumbledore, Remus and Snape all stand together, Snape looking cartoonishly short between Remus' lanky form and Dumbledore's tall, colourful one.

Harry sighs, and relates what he had felt after the Killing Curse had hit him, explaining in as much detail as he can the strange, sickly room, the odd feelings it gave him, even the laugh of the shade. Sirius, his expression horrified, sinks into one of the chairs at the side of the room, and Remus walks over to him, his hand gently resting on Sirius' back. As he explains everything that had happened, however, every single one of them remains silent, not interrupting Harry at all.

"And then, somewhere between running down the corridor and reaching the end, I woke up. My mouth tasted stale, but my heart was beating and my lungs were working, so I just threw myself into working. Got photographs of the Death Eaters, let people see I was up and about... What do you think it means, Headmaster? Was it just a dream?"

"Perhaps," Dumbledore says, in a measured tone. His blue eyes have a faraway look in them, glassy, as if he is working out some complex calculation inside his head.

"Given the Dark Lord's connection with his servants," Snape says quietly, his arms crossed tightly over his chest, "It would not surprise me to learn that he somehow left a piece of himself in you, Potter. It would explain the connection that necessitated your Occlumency training, would it not?"

"I wonder, Harry," Dumbledore murmurs, thoughtful. "I wonder, are you still a Parselmouth?" Harry looks around the room, seeing that there is a snake carved into the mirror, and he stares at it a moment, imagining its coils moving, its head shifting.

"Am I?" he whispers. He hears his own hissing clearly, and meets Dumbledore's gaze. The glassy look is gone now, replaced with a sharp attention.

"Curious. You retain your ability to speak Parseltongue, and yet I would wager your connection with Voldemort himself is severed. Can you still feel him?" Harry shakes his head. He feels the strange levity to his every Occlumency shield, and he had even searched for Voldemort inside his mind earlier, trying to get hold of the link between them, but it had been gone entirely. He had only his memories of being in Voldemort's head.

"What does that mean, then? That I'm not a Parselmouth because of Voldemort?"

"Parselmouths have been known to occur randomly," Snape says musingly, with a great disinterest. "Young Nymphadora is a Metamorphagus, and yet there is no history of such abilities in the Black line."

Dumbledore nods, and then adds, "Or when you defeated Voldemort's shade... It is possible you somehow digested what was left of it. Unsavoury, perhaps, but not a conscious action on your part. Magic has a set of rules it is bound by, such as those that support a Life Debt, and it works, at times, in ways we do not expect." Harry flicks his hand toward the fire, muttering an Incendio. Nothing happens; he feels a slight strain inside himself, but no actual magic.

"Mmm, shame I couldn't have a bit of his wandless magic," he says, and takes his wand to light the fire. As he drops to his knees below the fire, adding some coals to the grate, he listens to Dumbledore behind him.

"The way in which one places fragments of one's soul within an object... It is a rarely tested magic, and is usually performed only once. Perhaps Voldemort wished for more tethers to this world, but felt he ought have some added stability. In placing fragments of his soul alongside living souls, he might have believed he was making the process more stable, more sustainable. The placement of this fragment within you, Harry, may have been quite incidental, a matter of his magic working reflexively to protect him, just as yours did this afternoon."

"So," Harry asks, "If we cast the Killing Curse on a Death Eater, we might save them from Voldemort's influence without actually killing them?" Mad-Eye barks out a laugh.

"The boy's onto something!" Mad-Eye slaps his broad hand upon his wooden thigh, then takes a sip from his hip flask. Fred had once managed to pickpocket it last year, and had informed Harry and George that it smelled of nothing, but tasted like gin.

"Harry." Dumbledore's tone is stern, deeply reproachful, and Harry meets his gaze. "This is no matter to joke about."

"I'm not joking," Harry says, voice hard. "Sir, what other way do we have to break the connection?"

"Yours was a special case," Dumbledore says quietly. "Harry, Voldemort has likely bound his soul with that of his followers, ensuring they cannot be parted. The Killing Curse would only kill."

"So we're back to our previous solution of killing all the Death Eaters, then?"

"That is not a solution."

"Harry," Dumbledore speaks in a very gentle tone, "Murder-"

"Yes, yes, I know. It's terrible, it's terrible - but what if it's just me? What if I kill them? Sir, there's no other solution: we need those Death Eaters dead before we can kill Voldemort. How can you be okay with me killing him, but not the rest of them? They've killed people too. They've revelled in it." Dumbledore's expression is just sad, and Harry feels so impatient - why can't he just understand? "Sir, he Apparated into Diagon Alley, shot a Killing Curse at my head. He could have done that to dozens of people, to hundreds... Do you want that blood on your hands?" Desperately, he adds, "Do you want it on mine?"

Dumbledore's hand alights on Harry's shoulder, very gently, but before he can speak, there's a stiff knock, and the door opens. Cecilia steps inside, and hands two papers to Snape, which he takes, looking cursorily over them. She slips from the room without a word, closing the door behind her, and Mad-Eye limps up behind Snape to get a better look at the Prophet and Gazette respectively.

Harry can read the headlines from here: **BOY-WHO-LIVED IMMUNE TO DEATH?** is quite expected, but the other one makes him frown. **ROSIER STRUNG UP**.

"This morning," Snape says, seeming mildly amused, "It would seem that Mr Rosier had a run-in with Lockhart and his band of merry men. They replaced the sign on the old tavern on Helga's Square, The Hanged Man, with his corpse. How very poetic."

"If you were right before, Harry," Remus begins, and Harry looks to him. Sirius is leaning his head on Remus' hip, Remus' arm around his shoulder. "About Lockhart, I mean, ordering the death of Shunpike... There's no need for you to step in. Lockhart's troupe is becoming surprisingly competent."

"There are at least thirty Death Eaters, the worst of the worst, crazy people- You think they have a chance against them?"

"A better chance than you, Harry," Sirius says, his tone soft, and Harry sighs. He'd wanted to make everyone think with Shunpike, just think that if someone had killed him, maybe more wouldn't matter... And what the bloody Hell does Lockhart know? Rosier was a personal case, they didn't kill him because he was a Death Eater.

"If I might suggest, Albus," Snape says, "Potter ought be sent to his bed. Look at the boy: he barely stands." Harry opens his mouth on instinct, ready to argue, but he realizes, in that moment, that Snape is right: he's swaying on his feet, and feels fit to faint with lack of food and sleep. Closing his mouth with a quiet click, he wipes his hand over his face. All he feels as he passes Snape by is mild gratitude, and he lets it overpower his more complex emotions.

 **~ ϟ ~ THE LERNAEAN HYDRA ~ ϟ ~**

Severus sits beside the fire, feeling its pleasant heat against the side of his leg. The door opens, and Lupin enters, looking mildly harried; he and Black had followed Potter from the room, but now, Black doesn't seem to be returning with him. "Where is he?" Severus asks. He needn't do so. Potter is safe in this house, certainly, and yet a part of him still bleeding with guilt thinks, _but you must know where he is! You must be vigilant!_

"On a sofa in the library," Lupin murmurs. "I left the room to get him a blanket, but when I came back, he was always asleep. Sirius is out, too, in the armchair next to him." Some watch dog, Severus thinks, bitterly, but he voices neither the thought nor the pun. "What I said about Lockhart... Do you think I'm right? Alastor, Albus...?" Lupin has turned from Severus now, speaking to the other men in the room: Severus is, as always, the outsider, within the very room, and yet somehow without.

"Harry's theory as to Shunpike makes some sense," Moody says lowly; even though his normal eye rests on Lupin and Dumbledore, his magic one retains its gaze on Severus the entire time. Where else might it roam, after all? "On the Knight Bus, you meet Muggles, sure enough. He's had his issues with 'em, and Arthur Weasley'll tell you he's been written up a time or two, so he can definitely hold his own, like. But how would Lockhart figure all this out, even with his advising council of biddies?"

"The file clerk, Dorian-" Lupin becomes.

"Dorian Keats had no connection with Lockhart's troupe before I requested he ingratiate himself," Dumbledore says, patiently. Does he lie like that when people test him on Severus, Severus wonders? So simply, so easily? It had been Severus who had caught Keats, after all, coming down to Hogsmeade one evening after a meeting up the mountain. Of course Keats would be taken in by a man like Lockhart: even at school, Keats had been shy but serious, easily led astray by attractive men.

Severus has made his errors, but at least his mistakes were lead by _ego_ rather than _lust_. And Lockhart, at that - a dunce if ever there was one!

"Lockhart needs no knowledge of Voldemort's link to his followers in order to take offence to them," Dumbledore muses. "Shunpike might have personally offended them, just as Rosier did."

"I'm going back to Sirius and Harry," Lupin says, and Dumbledore nods his head. Moody follows the werewolf from the room, and when Dumbledore closes the door behind them, Severus sits very still in his chair beside the fire, and feels trapped.

"I didn't know," he says immediately. Dumbledore's eyes are forget-me-not blue, but they are icier than Lucius' ever were, despite the flint-like colour to Lucius' own. "Albus, you must believe me... I had no idea we were to be summoned, let alone to such a purpose! I would never, _never_ -" Albus' wizened hand rises, his fingers together, the palm flat, and Severus feels his tongue still in his mouth. Does Dumbledore hate him, Severus wonders? Despise him? He surely must, for all of Severus' sins, but Severus only wishes he would _show_ it. He is well-used to people hating him, but it is those that keep it hidden he cannot trust.

"Worry not, Severus. You cannot know everything." Severus wishes he did. Severus wishes he had known, wishes he could have done something, even if it were to cast Fiendfyre on their troupe as soon as they were all gathered together at Malfoy Manor - a way to kill them all, and the Dark Lord, all at once!

At least Severus would be dead, then.

"Recount the summoning to me, Severus. Spare no detail." Severus sighs, puts his head in his hands, and sighs a second time, longer, harder. He thinks of Black and Lupin, watching over their charge in the library as he sleeps on the sofa, finally free of his connection to this monster Severus remains shackled to, and all of his own fault.

"I felt the first twinge only minutes before the actual pull," Severus murmurs quietly. "This was some time past seven, as I had to remove my cauldron from the boil..." The rest of the tale slips from his tongue with ease, but he knows it gives no idea as to the Dark Lord's own thoughts, but that he thought to kill Potter. And when, Severus wonders, will the summoning come, when he wishes to punish his followers for the boy's survival?

Soon, no doubt.


	111. Year Five: A Painting Of Spies

After that night, life moves at so fast a pace it seems to pass Harry by in a blur.

The next morning, he wakes in his own bed at Sirius' apartment on Argyle Street, staring up at the canopy of his bed. Sun is shining in through the windows, brightly and warmly, and leaving a patch of Harry's leg hotter than the rest of him. He shifts forwards, going for the window and pushing it open. Immediately, a snowy figure alights on the sill: Hedwig, with a pack of letters tied about her left ankle, and a mouse dangling from her mouth.

"That for me?" With a seeming relish, she takes the thing into her mouth, beginning to loudly and bloodily chew it, and Harry laughs. It's very early, still, the London streets outside not yet having reached a bustle, and Harry takes off his clothes from the night previous, which are cold and stained with sweat. He remembers no dreams, having fallen into a very deep and sound unconsciousness, and he glances through the stack of envelopes. He recognizes the tight, fancy handwriting of Augusta Longbottom, the curt script of Amelia Bones, and then handwriting he doesn't recognize.

" _Mr. Harry Potter_ ," the letter declares, with a sense of class. The handwriting is in a nice, feminine hand, with curled edges to the letters as if the writer might once have been a calligrapher, and he sets the other post aside, splitting open the envelope and drawing out the letter itself. He scans directly from the Dear Harry to the end before he reads it, and now he sees her signature, it all makes sense: " _With love, Narcissa_."

For the first time, Harry is abruptly aware that he has never received a letter written by Narcissa. Although he has been received dozens, perhaps even a hundred or more, letters from the Malfoys, signed "Lucius & Narcissa", or "Mr and Mrs Malfoy," or "Your friends, the Malfoys," at Christmas time, they'd always been written in Lucius' attractive, authoritative handwriting. Harry thinks of the two of them sat by their fire place, talking quietly and with genteel manners over glasses of wine as Lucius writes his letters of an evening, perhaps with Narcissa's feet in his lap, and noting down Narcissa's thoughts in equal measure with his, mingled together like the convergence of two streams.

What must it feel like for her now he's gone, Harry thinks, when for so long her and Lucius had been two halves of something as much as they were separate pieces?

He feels slightly sick, and sets the letter aside. He'll read the body of it later.

When he goes out into the kitchen, flicking on the pot to boil on the hob, and he leans into the hall: Sirius' coat is missing from the coatrack, his business shoes missing from the neat lines of shoes beside the door, but Remus' coat and shoes are still there. Harry takes out two mugs, pouring himself a cup of coffee and making a cup of tea for Remus. He takes it sweet, way too sweet for Harry's liking, but Remus has a disgusting sweet tooth. He holds both of the mugs, knocking on Remus and Sirius' bedroom door with his elbow.

"Come in," Remus calls, and Harry flicks the door open, coming inside. Sitting straight-backed on a stool beside the window, Remus is bent over an architect's desk, and Harry places the new mug of steaming tea beside the empty one on the windowsill. Remus smiles at him, softly, and Harry leans over his shoulder, looking at the parchment page upon the desk. Remus is working with watercolours on the large square of canvas, and Harry sees the tall figure of a woman with braided red hair, in the process of being transformed into some sort of huge bird.

"I didn't know you painted," Harry murmurs. He'd seen the desk in the corner of the room, while dropping something into Sirius or Remus, or walking past when the door was open, but he'd never realized Remus was actually good. The woman is wearing a white chiffon woven with flowers and blooms, her head thrown back, her mouth open as it turns black and morphs into a beak, feathers falling on the ground around her feet. "Is this a curse?"

"Yes," Remus says, quietly. "This is Blodeuwedd - she's one of the figures in the Mabinogi."

"That's the Welsh mythology, right?" Remus nods his head, glancing over the tortured figure of the woman in the woods.

"Peter used to tell us stories around the fireplace at night. His mother died when he was a child, so it was just his dad that raised him. He was very strict - very strict - and Peter... When we met him, he was an absolute wreck. He'd get so nervous just saying hello that he'd stammer for twenty minutes before he could get the word out, and he could barely spit out a spell. It wasn't until we were fifteen or so that he was able to cast incantations like the rest of us, and by then he'd just started to cast non-verbally." Remus shakes his head slightly, chuckles, and murmurs, "He actually did better on his charms exams than any of us." He seems genuinely fond as he reminisces, and Harry doesn't speak up to interrupt him. He never does, when Sirius or Remus do this about Pettigrew. "Anyway... The first time he ever managed to talk to the three of us in paragraphs, with a stammer that was sort of manageable, he told us a story. It was a little mangled - his first language was Welsh, of course - but it was a good story. Blodeuwedd tried to kill her husband so she could be with her lover, so some magicians cursed her. They turned her into an owl. The bird all of the others shun."

"Are they all from Welsh stories?" Harry asks, reaching for the next page and bringing it down. The canvas is transparent, with block text appearing in line with Blodeuwedd's calves: "And poor Blodeuwedd cried, and cried: "Gwydion! You- You- You-," but she never finished her curse, for the spell overtook her, and her words became "Hoo! Hoo!" as she was transformed.

"This is for a book?" Harry says, feeling the surprise show on his face, and Remus leans forwards, pulling forwards a box that leans against the wall. He pulls out three little books, each with painted watercolour illustrations. Harry had assumed that the painting of Blodeuwedd was unfinished, but none of the illustrations are magically animated. They're Muggle books: Matholwch's Cauldron, Rhiannon Fair and the last book, which is darker than the others: The Warlock's Hairy Heart. "This is a wizarding story." He says it quietly, drawing his fingers over the dark, shadowy image of the wizard's heart, with hair growing from the muscled tendons. In a little gold medal at the corner of the cover, it declares, CARNEGIE PRIZE WINNER, 1994. Harry traces over the looping text at the base of the cover that declares, Written and illustrated, with love, by R.J. Lupin.

"It's the first one I published. Celia Hayworth, she saw a painting of mine that I'd done for Minerva McGonagall. Put me in touch with a Muggle publishing house, run by a Squib she knows from back in Ireland... You didn't think I just lived on Sirius' money, did you?" Remus expression is teasing, and Harry feels stupid at the way his tongue freezes in his mouth, the way he goes entirely silent for a moment or two. Remus breaks the momentary silence with his laughter, chuckling as he takes the books back and neatly sets them aside. "It's alright, Harry. You don't think of these things." What is that supposed to mean? Harry wants to demand, but he doesn't holding his tongue a few seconds more: Remus isn't having a go at him, after all.

Harry hears the front door open, and he leans back on the bed, watching the door. When Sirius enters, Harry feels his mouth fall open.

Sirius is wearing a traditional business robe, a sort of tunic with loose sleeves, a high collar and a flowing skirt, a vest tightly fastened over top. The vest is black and embroidered in gold with vines and flowers, and the chain of his watch blends in with it very artfully. Gold shines at the hems of his skirt and sleeves, too, and around his neck, Sirius wears a chain of silver with a silver W emblazoned on a sort of medal.

"I didn't know we'd be getting the costume, too," Remus says, dryly.

"Shut up, Moony," Sirius says, sharply, and he walks past the both of them, going to a chest of drawers and rifling through it. Harry sees the hurt that flashes over Remus' face, but Sirius just ignores him entirely, rummaging until he finds a stack of papers, muttering to himself as he sorts through them. "You want to come with us?"

"I think it's best that I don't," Remus says, delicately. "I wouldn't want to undermine your message." Sirius turns, opening his mouth, his brows furrowed, but then he hesitates, and he sighs softly.

"What's going on?" Harry asks.

"This morning, I reclaimed the Black seat on the Wizengamot," Sirius says, flicking his wand in the direction of the hall. A box flies into the room, gliding neatly to place itself upon Remus' lap, and Harry looks inside as he opens up the box, seeing the plum-coloured fabric. "Hereditary seats aren't common any more: most of the families that had them, the Ancient ones, have died off or given up their seats."

"Do the Potters have a seat?" Harry asks, more out of curiosity than any wish to get onto the Wizengamot, and Sirius distractedly shakes his head as he looks through the papers in his hands. He's stiff as a board, but his hands are shaking slightly, and Harry watches him very carefully. He's never seen Sirius like this, so abruptly driven and throwing himself into something like politics... Harry's surprised.

"No," Sirius mutters. "Your granddad, and your great aunt Martha, they had some seats for services to the wizarding world, but they were lifetime seats..."

"I never knew you were interested in politics," Harry says, softly.

Sirius lets out a sudden snarl of sound, throwing the papers aside, and Harry feels himself flinch back; beside him, Remus is utterly unmoved, and silently waves his wand, beginning to draw up the papers again. Sirius stands in the middle of the room, his fists clenched, his teeth gritted, and Harry is reminded of a trapped animal. "I'm not," Sirius says finally, with bitterness sticking to the words. "But Narcissa is taking up the Malfoy mantel, and I... Nobody else can do it, Harry. And if Voldemort is back, then we have to. You don't understand, you couldn't understand, what it was like, during the war. He infiltrated everything, everything! The papers, the Ministry, everything from the local post office to the Essex Quidditch Team. We need to act as much as he does."

Remus hands the papers over, and then says, "If you're looking for your birth certificate, it's in the documents drawer in the kitchen. Same place as mine and Harry's." Remus' voice is measured and quiet, his dark eyes soulful. Sirius closes his eyes for a moment or two, mutters something that is close to an apology, and then leaves the room. "Go with him, Harry. Grimmauld Place is where the action is today anyway."

Remus is right.

A half hour or so later, when Harry crosses the threshold into Grimmauld Place, the whole building is bustling, a flurry of owls coming in and out of the window in the hall. Many of them bear Ministry crests on the harnesses around their chests, and others are broad-winged owls with bright plumages or shining eyes: well-bred owls, used by the upper classes. One of them stops short, tiredly alighting on Harry's shoulder, and he strokes her chest gently.

Hedone is an eagle owl, named for a Greek goddess of pleasure, and according to Lucius, he'd received her when he was ten or so. For being thirty years old, she doesn't look very old, though she's very muscular, and subsequently something of a weight on Harry's shoulder. Sirius stalks past, opening a door to the drawing room: Harry only needs to the see the flurry of documents on the air inside to be put off, and he makes his way up the stairs. He stops at one of the doors, and knocks.

"Come in." The reply is terse, and Harry pushes the door open. Immediately, Hedone takes off from Harry's shoulder and drops into bed with Draco instead. The other boy is lying in bed, only wearing a set of pyjama bottoms and tangled in his shirts, his head on the pillow. Harry sees no evidence of a book or something to do, but he can tell from Draco's expression that he's been awake and thinking for a while. Hedone drops her weight upon Draco's neck, flapping her wings and nipping playfully at his ears, and Draco's laughs are soft and slightly hoarse, as if he's unused to laughing.

Draco's room is sparsely decorated. He had told Harry once, in a fit of pique, that he didn't really believe in excess - rich, coming from a boy with silver-plated door knobs - but now that he sees Draco's bedroom, he really believes it. Several blankets are neatly folded on the table beside his chair, and there's a painting of a Greek temple above his writing desk, but other than that, there are no posters, no toys, no messy things about the place. There are framed photographs of his parents on his desk, a few books, and that's all. "You know, if I told people you were a minimalist, they wouldn't believe me."

Draco says nothing, just smiling slightly and shifting in his bed. It's a king-sized mattress, and Draco looks tiny in the middle of it; the older they get, the more Draco seems to take after Narcissa. Both Narcissa and Lucius always struck Harry as unusually tall, but Draco is willowy and thin like his mother is, with wider hips and a dancer's form, soft edges and high cheek bones. A fleeting thought runs through his head, and Harry wonders if Draco regrets that more, now that his father is dead.

"How're you keeping?"

"I don't think I am," Draco says. He doesn't look at Harry; instead, his icy-blue eyes stare into the space before him, searching the clouded thoughts that Harry can't see. "Mother can... She used to study Occlumency, a kind of mind magic. She can do that. She can just... Just keep going. I can't do that."

"Occlumency isn't so hard," Harry murmurs quietly. He comes further into the room, settling himself on the edge of Draco's bed: he makes sure the distance between them is still enough, not wanting to touch the other boy without his permission. Not when he's like this. "I could teach you, or Professor Snape..." Draco minutely shakes his head. "Do you want to talk? I imagine talking to Narcissa is hard right now."

"It just feels so unfair," Draco murmurs. "She keeps asking me to tell her how I feel, but how can I do that to her, Harry? She's mourning too. And Severus... He says the same, but Father once said to me, he once said he almost thought of Severus as like a son to him. Can you imagine that? There's only six years between them." Severus. Harry looks down at Draco, watching him with a quiet care, and he decides not to speak. The silence draws on, for a little while, but then Draco continues, "I never thought he'd- Perhaps this is stupid, but I never thought my parents would die, either of them. I always thought that somehow, I'd die before they did. That's selfish, isn't it?"

"Nah," Harry says, shaking his head vehemently. "It's not selfish, mate. People don't exactly think about this stuff, as a rule." Draco brings his knees up, closer to his chest. He looks pale, and pallid, and around his eyes there's the pink puffiness that's been raised there with a lack of sleep and too much crying. Harry guesses Draco isn't getting much to eat, either, and he crawls forwards, slowly lying down in mirror to Draco. Hedone, cruelly dislodged from her place on the other pillow, flaps over to the windowsill, and Harry meets Draco's gaze as he puts his head on the pillow. "What you have to think about, I guess, is that he really loved you, you know? And even though he's gone, you got to know him for fifteen years, right? Fifteen years of love. That's a lot." Draco's face crumples, and Harry sees the shine of the tears on his cheeks, staining the pillow. "Draco... Lucius wouldn't have wanted you to just stay in bed forever."

"The last time I left my bed was your birthday party," Draco says, meeting Harry's gaze. His eyes shine. "And look what happened there. You could have died too, Harry, I could have lost- I could have lost you too. Or Mother." Draco's fear shows in his voice, which comes with a tremulous note to it, and Harry feels an aching melancholy settle in his belly. What can he possibly do? What could he possibly say? "The only death I ever knew was my grandfather, and I was too young to really understand it." And, Harry thinks, Lucius probably killed Abraxas anyway, according to Augusta Longbottom, Mad-Eye Moody and four or five other people.

Harry stays lying down with Draco, watching his face, and he says quietly, "It'll stop feeling this raw, soon. It won't stop, but it will hurt less." He thinks, anyway. He hopes, anyway.

"Will you stay here? For a while?" There's so much desperation in Draco's voice, cracking it up the middle, that Harry feels a pang inside himself, and he slowly nods his head.

 **~ ϟ ~ THE LERNAEAN HYDRA ~ ϟ ~**

Draco takes several hours to fall asleep that time. The next time, a few days later, it takes him an hour. The seventh time, two weeks later, Harry walks into Grimmauld Place, and Draco isn't in his bedroom. Harry finds him in the small gymnasium, practising a complex wizarding acrobatics that Harry could never hope to attempt: he watches Draco move on bars high above his head, the muscles in his legs stark and corded under the fabric of his leggings, his expression focused and his gaze solid. Harry is awed as he watches Draco swing and jump and shift, and even when he messes up a twist in the air, and falls, Harry finds himself utterly spellbound.

Wizarding sports are often complex and violent, but wizarding dances and athletics never fail to amaze him - and throughout it all, Draco doesn't seem to even notice his existence. His single-minded concentration, his focus, is actually good to see.

When Harry walks down the stairs an hour or so later, he walks into a flurry of messenger birds, and Harry opens the drawing room door to allow the dozen of them inside. Sirius and Narcissa are each sat at different desks, writing letters in flowing scripts of green ink, and the owls neatly place their envelopes and rolled up parchments in boxes that say INCOMING. The two of them have been going into the Ministry every single day since they started doing their work there two weeks ago, with Sirius working at least six to eight hours in the Wizengamot every day. Every day, he seems to gain a little more traction, understanding it a little better; he's getting less irritable at home, too, and some nights, he and Remus will sit in the living room with a bottle of wine between them, Sirius talking about his day as Remus paints. Blodeuwedd was finished three days ago, and sent off to a delighted publisher: now, he is beginning work on The Fountain Of Fair Fortune.

Harry closes the door, and walks into the dining room. Lindon Sartorius is engaged in a tense game of chess with Dedalus Diggle, who has gone so far as to take off his top hat to better concentrate. Fred and George are playing Exploding Snap with Ted Tonks, Dorian Keats and Sturgis Podmore, and all five of them have the same inhuman concentration as the chess-players, or as Draco upstairs, and Harry lacks the heart to disturb them. He keeps walking, into the kitchen, where he finds Arthur Weasley hurriedly eating toast over the sink.

The Weasley patriarch looks more tired than Harry has ever seen him, seeming ready to drop on his feet, and Harry watches him. It's nearing seven o'clock, and the Order Of The Phoenix is meeting at 7:30. From Arthur's harried expression and pallid features, Harry would guess he hasn't eaten since he left the Burrow that morning, and he frowns slightly. In fourteen days, there has been an unprecedented number of attacks and strange coincidences across the Wizarding World: cases of arson, sabotage (such as grindylows being released in less than six Muggle swimming pools), graffiti in most of the main wizarding villages, and even people's pets going missing and being somehow violently returned. There haven't been any cases of murder yet, but Harry knows they'll come, and from what he's heard from Sirius, the Ministry is tense.

"It's been a harsh fortnight, Harry," Arthur says, brushing crumbs from his collar and into the sink, clapping his hands together to get rid of the last of it. "There's been stuff I've not seen in thirty years, all released at once, left in Muggle charity shops or village halls, the sort of nasty magic you'd never even have heard of. And this, this is just the start of it - this isn't even practice. This is a warm-up for the practice."

"Yes, sir," Harry agrees, leaning against the counter and watching the taller man for a moment. "What's the atmosphere like in the Ministry?"

"I think Fudge'll resign soon," Arthur says, immediately, as if he's desperate to talk about it, and hasn't really been given the chance. Judging by the terse nature of Molly Weasley's letters in the past few weeks, she'd rather pretend none of this is happening, and as stupid as it is, Harry can't really blame her. Arthur looks to Harry, and then looks past him, to the door. "Sirius, and Nar- Narcissa. They're trying to work things out. But today..." Arthur shakes his head, and Harry frowns.

"What? Today, what?"

"Men in black robes and silver masks were seen in Calais, in the magical port, and then in The Gold District of Paris. A crew of them were also seen in Mars, the all-magical town outside Lyon, a group of them on the Swiss equivalent of Diagon Alley - I can't pronounce the name - and a contingent was in Ireland too, in Galway City. The entrance to their magical is on the canal, very subtle, but there were four of them hanging around the Spanish Arch. The Treoiracha - a bit like Irish Aurors - didn't know what to do with themselves. They weren't even doing anything, just in their masks, having loud conversations, but keeping them vague enough about magic that the Treoiracha couldn't step in. They never realized they were Death Eaters until after they'd left."

"Public appearances, then," Harry murmurs. "Raise the awareness that Voldemort's back." Arthur flinches, and then slowly nods his head. Harry curls his lip, and he makes his way out of the kitchen, stepping into the dining room. It's beginning to fill up now, with all of the members of the Order, but nobody looks their best: even Mundungus Fletcher looks twitchy and exhausted, hanging off to the side of the room with his filthy knees drawn up to his chest. Harry steps into Narcissa and Sirius' office, and stares at Narcissa; Sirius is leaning in at her side, and the two of them are talking into the speaker of an old-fashioned telephone, the sort of thing Harry expects as popular in the '20s. It's in rapid French, and Harry doesn't catch too much of it, but both Sirius and Narcissa seem to relax a little some way into the conversation, each letting out breaths of air, and when Narcissa puts the receiver down, she slumps in her chair.

"Who was that?" Harry asks.

"Lucius' uncle Guillaume," Narcissa says, softly. "The Richelieus have already started their own information network, and are already lobbying the French government to have the Death Eaters declared a terrorist group, so that they may not appear in public."

"Frank's family, yeah?"

"Yes, Francois' grandparents," Narcissa confirms, and she pulls herself to stand. Narcissa is the only person in the house that doesn't look tired, but Harry wonders how many minutes she spends in front of her mirror in the morning, carefully creating a politician's face, with no imperfections at all. "Are you coming to the meeting?"

"For the first hour, and then Sirius is going to catch me up," Harry says. "I've got to meet a friend." Narcissa frowns slightly, glancing between Sirius and Harry, but Sirius' expression is calculatedly blank, and he just gives a nod of his head. The meeting is full of information, and half of it seems to just be people listing horrible events and happenings and linking them back to the Death Eaters.

"My source within the Death Eaters," Dumbledore says, quietly, "Tells me that Lord Voldemort wishes to sow the seeds of chaos across the United Kingdom: he has no desire to appear himself yet. These appearances by the Death Eaters and these strange occurrences, they're beacon calls to those who might wish to follow him again, and warnings to those who might not. He is angry that his attempt on Mr Potter's life was unsuccessful, and he has wish to draw together what power he might in the meantime." He lets these words hang in the air, and then says, quietly, "Let us break for a few moments. Then, we'll begin discussing our further plans - Narcissa and Sirius tell me they're bringing a bill before the Wizengamot at midnight tonight."

Harry stands from the table, going to the corridor, and he pulls on his cloak.

"Going somewhere, Potter?"

"I have a meeting, Professor Snape," Harry says, quietly. Snape is dressed as he ever is, his hair tied back behind his neck, and on the side of his jaw there's a thick cloud of bruising, but everybody has bruises these days. A lank lock of hair is a little too short to be tied back with the rest, and it follows the line of Snape's stark temple and sallow cheekbone, framing his face in a way that looks almost posed, as if he's readying himself for a Muggle photograph. "I'll be within earshot of the house."

Snape watches him for a long few seconds, his black eyes concentrated on Harry's face, and then he gives a nod of his head, and he walks off down the corridor. Harry opens the front door, buckling his cloak closed as he steps out onto the doorstep, and then he moves out into the street. There's a light wind in the street, and he makes his way to the grassy embankment across from the house.

"Adrian," he says, and when Adrian waves from a bench, standing up and throwing his arms around Harry. Harry hugs the other boy back, tightly.

"Where've you been? Seems like you've dropped off the face of the Earth!"

"Something's been... Happening, that's all. Let's talk."


	112. Year Five: The Damp Squib

"Hey, Severus!" He turns on the stair, arching a dark eyebrow. Cecilia Hayworth is dressed in a leather overcoat coloured in an obnoxious hot pink, her elbows leant upon the bannister as she looks up at him. Her expression is serious, and Severus feels his eyes flit around the surrounding area of the hall, seeking out the lanky form of Lindon Sartorius, and not finding it. "I just wanted to ask, uh, teaching. McGonagall said you've been over to Eala Dubh, right?"

"The Irish magical school," Severus says, "Yes. I taught there for a term in 1986." He finishes his sentence, and watches her. She furrows her brow, leaning forwards slightly: he appends nothing to the statement. What is it, Severus wonders, that she expects him to say? For a term, he had traded places with their Potions Mistress at the time, Orla Delaney, primarily in order that they could exchange certain recipes and techniques within their respective infirmaries.

Impatiently, she asks, "How was it?"

"It was fine," Severus answers, mildly. "We may soon be at war, Ms Hayworth: this chit-chat seems misplaced."

"I've accepted a teaching position there, as their History of Magic teacher passed away a few months ago. Do you have any advice?" Advice? Severus rarely finds himself asked for advice from anyone not under his care at Hogwarts; it strikes him as strange, and surreal, to be so asked for help from an adult.

"No," he decides, and he makes his way up the stairs. The carpet, which is threaded with silver and shines in the candlelight, leads him easily on his journey; he takes another flight of stairs, and then another, before pushing aside a bookcase and revealing the door to yet another. These stairs are tight, made of stone and uncarpeted, and the soles of his dragonhide boots make not the barest of sounds as he makes his way up them, because he has long since taken to enchanting his boots and robes to silence. The staircase leads him out onto a wide balcony, with rows of plants growing neatly in small allotted casements. The runs are made of white marble, each the size of a coffin, and Severus reaches out, drawing his fingers over the lilac leaves of a Lightning Lily. He is rewarded with a tingle of electricity that plays over his palm, and he allows himself the smallest of smiles as he walks on. He comes to a stop at the edge of the roof garden, scanning the ground far below. The garden is enchanted, meaning it cannot be seen from outside the house itself, but Potter isn't looking up anyway: Severus sees his hand reach for those of the other boy's, and he feels a furrow deepen between his brows. He doesn't recognize the boy at all, but he is most certainly of a Hogwarts age...

A Muggle, then.

Severus lets out the smallest of sighs, allowing himself this small weakness in the isolation of the Grimmauld Place garden, laying his head in his palm: the love affairs of teenage boys are hardly to be analysed in detail, but it seems Potter engages only with those that will bring the greatest danger on him. First Zabini, with his arachnid mother keen with a bottle of poison at the slightest disagreement, and now a Muggle boy...

He hears steps in the stairwell, and he stands up straight, turning to the flower beside him. It is a tall rose, taller than Severus himself, and when he offers it his palm, it leans in and softly nuzzles the skin as a loyal dog. Severus has a Kissing Rose at home, a gift from several Christmases ago, but this one is much taller and broader than his. The Kissing Rose is used in some love potions, as well as Tinctures of Fidelity, but as a plant it is as gentle and affectionate as a puppy, laying soft touches and kisses upon anyone who comes close. They had always been a favourite of Lucius', and Severus remembers that when Lucius had left Hogwarts, at the end of Severus' first year, the most vibrant of the Kissing Roses in Greenhouse 3 had pined itself near to death, until Narcissa had taken up its care.

By all accounts, she read the plant the letters Lucius sent her twice a week, and it had flourished once more.

"Severus," Narcissa says. She stands framed in the archway like a painting, her hands clasped in front of her black mourning robes. Severus turns his gaze to meet hers. "That bruise..." Severus resists the urge to reach up and trace the blossom of bruises on the side of his jaw, instead keeping his own hands at his sides as he moves toward Narcissa. "The Dark Lord was angry with you?"

"No," Severus assures her, quietly. With a flick of his wand, the door to the stairwell clicks closed behind her, eliminating any potential for eavesdropping. Narcissa is the only one in the house, after all, who knows of his engagement with the Dark Lord, barring Albus himself, and it would not do for his espionage to be known to the rest of the Order. "It was Bella who was angry with me. The Dark Lord merely felt it amusing that I should keep the marks." He sees the conflicting emotions pass over Narcissa's face, the desperate wish to ask after her sister, the desire to demand that Severus never return there, the fear, the uncertainty... "Bellatrix took offence to a comment of mine as to Hogwarts' protections. Azkaban has taken what little patience she had away from her... She is more brash, now, and impulsive, even with such time as she has had to recover."

"The Dark Lord," Narcissa whispers. "He is displeased with her?"

"On the contrary," Severus replies, mildly. "She is, as ever, his favourite." The thought occurs to Severus that were he saying these words twenty years ago, they would likely be overlaid with jealousy, as if the favour of the Dark Lord was in any way desirable, and a twinge of self-loathing affects him to turn away from Narcissa. He picks up some gloves and a pruning shear, beginning to work upon some of the neglected flowers of the garden. Severus is neither a skilled Herbologist nor a gardener, but Narcissa hasn't the time to labour over these flowers, and no visitors to the house know anything about plants. "I don't believe he will kill her, Narcissa - and you know I would not lie to spare your feelings."

"You give me your word?"

"I do."

"Does she talk of me?" Severus hesitates, but Narcissa's gaze is severe, and while he could easily lie to her (it would not be the first vow he has broken), he does not.

"She does. She labels you a blood traitor, as she does Andromeda. Such things ought not surprise you."

"They don't," Narcissa says in the softest of voices. She slowly seats herself amongst some of the fruit trees, and at her proximity they burst in flowers, each leaning towards her and offering her pretty blossoms and sweet fruits from their young bows. In selecting the saplings for the garden, Lucius had chosen only the gentlest and most affectionate of plants, no doubt making up for the slaughter of his peacocks at Malfoy Manor, and the loss of his hunting dogs. In their friendship, Severus had witnessed Lucius take dozens of lives, but with children or animals, he absolutely melted, as a glacier in a hot bath.

The pain is dull, and Severus feels it behind the bone of his sternum.

Breaking the momentary silence, Narcissa says, "I don't know how Draco is to perform at school, Severus. He takes to his bed day after day, he speaks little, even to myself. He and Lucius, they shared a bond that I never..." She trails off, despondently, and then says, "Draco and I have a close bond, of course, but he and Lucius always spoke so much upon their feelings. Draco and I always spoke more of things, and people, and history. He feels so deeply! What sort of mother am I, that he does not tell me of his grief?"

"Have you asked him?" Severus asks. The ensuing silence speaks more on the matter than Narcissa's mouth might have, and Severus sees no need to break it. The past few weeks have flickered by at such a rate that Severus has found himself very rarely permitted a moment's peace: he has been called the Dark Lord no less than three times in the past fortnight alone, and there have been a barrage of staff meetings as they have reinforced the castle wards, increased the security of Hogwarts, and most crucially, hand-delivered Hogwarts letters to Muggleborn students by hand, that they might know of the situation they are entering into. Just last night, Severus had overheard Arthur and William Weasley speaking on the subject of the Granger girl's parents, who she has convinced to immigrate.

"I will ask him," Narcissa says, softly. Severus removes his gloves, laying them aside, and he stands beside her, watching her carefully. "We have to be strong."

"Yes," he agrees. His eyes close suddenly, his face crumpling, and he lets out a short sound of pain as incandescent heat flares in his left arm, sending a venomous thread through his every vein.

"He calls for you?" Severus inclines his head, and he moves past her, making his way fast down the four sets of stairs and out into the street. Potter is just coming back toward the house, his lips red and bruised, his eyes wet, and Severus forces his expression into impassiveness as he turns on his heel and Disapparates with a soft, near-silent pop.

Malfoy Manor, for nearly forty years, had been like Eden. Stepping upon the grounds, one felt like they were being transported to a legendary arboretum: sparing no expense, Lucius had hired a good many Herbologists to spend time in his expansive gardens, encouraging ancient trees to grow anew, and in the fields abounded flowers that no longer grew anywhere else. Lucius had done it partially for appearances, making his own home something of a wildlife preserve, but Severus knows that, in equal measure, it pleased him to be able to walk among plants that flourished under his hands in a way they did under no one else's. Lucius had always been a vain man, caring most of all for the appearance of his own power, but his paternity was always genuine, when he decided to offer it.

Once, as one walked up the main path from the edge of the grounds, one walked beneath an archway of silver aspen and weeping willows, and beneath one's tread, flowers bloomed in the marks of one's footsteps. Now, Severus' booted feet meet grey dirt, unable to support even a weed, and around him spans miles of nought but wasteland. No trees grow, no flowers bloom, and although scant patches of grass are holding on, he knows that they too will soon die away. Severus walks past the silver bandstand that had hosted Lucius' aviary, now spattered with the stains of blood: Bellatrix had made short work of Lucius' flock, making toys of the doves and targets of the peacocks. The Malfoy horses had been whipped into a frenzy, made to run about a single field until they inevitably stumbled, trampling each other or breaking their own necks: Bellatrix's harsh laughter had mingled with their screams and whinnies, and Lucius' dogs (he had always claimed they were for hunting, though Severus had never seen him so much as trap a rabbit) had been starved until they tore each other apart.

In the courtyard before the Manor itself, there is a tall statue in the midst of a beautiful, complex fountain. When it had been made, some centuries ago, it depicted some Malfoy ancestor kneeling as a dryad laid a blessing upon his head.

Now, the dryad is headless, and the fountain does not run.

It is dark inside Malfoy Manor. Severus' eyes easily adjust to the dimness of it, and he stalks with his head held high into the central hall of Malfoy Manor. He feels the gazes of his comrades upon him as he makes his way in, his expression haughtily neutral, and he takes his seat at the Dark Lord's left hand. Across from him, at the Dark Lord's right hand, is Bellatrix: she stares him down, her lip curled, and Severus offers her a small, pleasant smile. He finds himself wondering, vaguely, what it might take to affect Andromeda to look at him this way at an order meeting - but no, Dromeda looks less and less like Bellatrix Lestrange as each day passes by. The woman is a bean sidhe thirsty for blood, and Severus must wonder when their lord will allow her to go out and kill as she so desperately desires to.

Why else, after all, spend such time on eliminating every pet of Lucius Malfoy's, and hexing every pansy on the grounds of his family home into submission?

"Severus..." He turns his head, meeting the red gaze of his lord; the smile is replaced with a serious expression of careful attention; the Dark Lord looks Severus in the eyes, unblinking. In the past months, his inhuman form has been moderated somewhat, with his most snakelike features melting away. As he is now, he looks as he did when Severus first knelt before him, in the spring of '77: his jaw is now square and handsomely cut, his nose slowly growing to be more human as each day passes, and although his irises are a bloody red, his eyes are slowly changing shape, the pupil receding into a circular shape, and the eyes themselves less reptilian.

"Yes, my lord?" Severus asks. They sit at a long dining table intended for a banquet, the twenty-five other members of Lord Voldemort's inner circle straining to hear what might be said at the table's head, but Severus pays no heed to the others.

"We worried we might miss you. What were you doing?"

"I was gardening, my lord." Bellatrix scoffs, and Severus arches an eyebrow at her. She has some parody of the Midas touch in her, Severus thinks. He remembers when they were yet at school, and Rodolphus Lestrange, in his courtship of Bella, had attempted some florid description of impregnation, hoping to woo her. An elder Slytherin - Roswell - had taken the letter from him and laughed, declaring that Bellatrix Black's womb was no doubt as shrivelled and barren as the banks of the Styx, and that he might do better to put his seed within a corpse.

Roswell died that year - a terrible accident. His body had looked terribly dramatic sprawled beneath the Hogwarts staircases.

"What were you gardening, Severus? Flowers?" Her tone is derisive, as if the thought of flowers is one offensive to the ear, and he arches an eyebrow. "Oh, maybe you were watering a tree?"

"Bella," Severus says, very patiently, "Your tone would imply you have doubts as to the existence of gardens. Is that the case?" Soft chuckles and titters ripple through the chamber, but at a withering look from Bellatrix, every single mouth clicks closed. Looking around the room, it is hardly a surprise that Bellatrix is so irritable - as an Azkaban escapee, she cannot even walk the streets in daylight, but there are lesser Death Eaters who can, because they are not as proud as she is of her service. Severus has caught her twice now with her hands around the neck of Gideon Gibbon, a linesman for the European train service, each time motivated by the fact that he did not boast of his involvement with the Dark Lord as she did, after the war.

"Bella, Severus," the Dark Lord speaks softly, in the voice of a father bemused at his children's squabbles; there is an undertone of steel to his words, and immediately Severus leans back in his chair, turning his gaze to the Dark Lord and only to him. "With the death of Evan Rosier, we have neglected a crucial alliance. Who here will seek out the den of the Acromantula?"

"We'll do it, my lord!" says the deep voice of Alecto Carrow, and immediately, her brother begins to nod beside her.

"Yes, my lord! We hunted with Evan as children." The Dark Lord seems to appraise the Carrows and their eagerness for the job, and then he gives a small inclination of his head.

"Very well. Alecto, Amycus: seek out their nest, and return to us with their location. Of course, it is crucial we send a contingent." There's a secrecy to the Dark Lord's smile that Severus files away, to mention to Albus. He seems to feel amusement about the Acromantula, and why, Severus could not venture a guess. "Now, on the matter of Lockhart's group of ne'er-do-wells, it is-" The double doors of the hall burst open, and the room is abruptly quiet. The silence rings from one stone wall to another, and Severus immediately moves to stand, turning on his heel to face the shaking form of Maximilian Caine.

He's little more than a child himself, having left Hogwarts that very year, and with high grades on his NEWTs - but not as a result of magical ability. Every year, Severus has sat with the other four heads, and they had discussed whether it was fair to allow Maxie to continue his schooling, given that the boy was barely more than a squib. Young Maxie - and it is difficult to think of him with any other name, so small and shy a creature as he is - has flourished academically only once he had reached his NEWTs, and could study subjects that required no practical magic at all.

"Mr Caine," Severus says, his lip curling. "How dare you interrupt us? Come, with me-"

"No, no, Severus," Lord Voldemort whispers. His fingers dance over the fabric of Severus' robe, gesturing for him to sit down. Anger flares in the other man's eyes, but his expression is kind, and this is the reason Severus had wished to usher the boy from the room: the Dark Lord's response is unpredictable, and he may well elect to torture Caine here and now. "If Maxie has interrupted us, he surely has reason."

Caine stumbles forwards, shaking like a leaf, and the Dark Lord's lips, which are beginning to look more pink and plump with every day that passes, quirk into a small smile. He gestures Caine to come closer, closer, until the Dark Lord grasps at his robe, pulling him closer and forcing him to sit on the arm of the Dark Lord's throne-like chair, a parody of a boy on a father's knee.

"I- I do have reason, my lord, I'm so sorry, I would never have... I'm so sorry, I-" Lord Voldemort's holly wand is in his right hand, flicking from side to side as he plays with the length of it, and the silence in the room is so great that barely any man in the room is even breathing. Every single Death Eater, even Bellatrix, is utterly silent as they look to their lord and to Maxie, who lacks a Dark Mark, and is little more than a pet.

"Please, Maxie. Don't beat around the bush so: tell us!"

"The Wizengamot has called an urgent meeting. They're meeting tonight, at midnight, and... And my relatives have just received their summons: the meeting has been called by Narcissa Malfoy and Sirius Black."

"And the motion?" the Dark Lord asks in a whisper. Caine bites down on his lip.

"That if He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named doesn't turn himself in by September 5th, with his followers or without, that the Ministry will declare a state of emergency, with the potential to be followed by a declaration of war." Bellatrix gasps, her eyes wide, and she isn't the only one: shocked sounds and intakes of breath echo around the chamber, and Caine is staring resolutely at his own knees. Not one of them dares look at the Dark Lord directly; even Severus himself looks at him with care, from the corner of his eye.

Lord Voldemort's expression is impassive for a long few moments, and then he smiles, his fingers tracing the line of Caine's spine as if the boy is a Kneazle or a cat. Caine shivers, but doesn't dare to recoil away from the Dark Lord's touch: he's a lanky boy, tall and thin, but he looks small balanced on the arm of the chair as he is. The Dark Lord's smile shows teeth and is almost handsome, although the expression makes Severus feel a twinge of fear, deep within himself, behind the shadows of his Occlumency shields.

"What a pleasure it will be," Lord Voldemort whispers, his voice resonant within the room and bouncing from wall to wall to ceiling, "To face opponents who know the value of strategy. Disperse! Those of you with political links in the Ministry Magic, go forth. See what influence you might have against this motion, and put it into effect. None of you carry votes in the chamber yourself?"

"Canton did," says Huw Selwyn, quietly. "But only he, my lord. He and-" Selwyn seems to remember himself (to mention Lucius at a time like this!), and says quickly, "Only he."

"And you feared me, Maxie," the Dark Lord murmurs, pulling Caine to face him, and he cups Caine's cheeks in his white hands, his fingers drawn over the clean-shaven, fear-flushed skin. "Such important news, and you brought it here to me, risking my... _Temper_." Severus sees the relief in Maxie's every feature, in the loosening of his shoulders and the shift of his position, and as the Dark Lord draws his thumb over Caine's cheek, Caine has the enchanted smile of a boy in love on his features. "You are each dismissed. Bar you, Maxie."

There are grinds and whines of wood on stone as everybody stands to leave, but Severus hesitates. He waits, his hands behind his back and his form to attention as he waits for the others to leave, and he says, "My lord, if I might ask a query of you... Lockhart. What is to be done about him? I know he cannot truly undercut us, but with his attack on Rosier-"

"And what is it you suggest, Severus?" the Dark Lord asks, seeming amused at this seeming grasp for power. "Or is this another request that I hand command of my lieutenants to you, as opposed to Bellatrix?" This is stupid of him. This is oh-so- _stupid_ of Severus, to go to such a risk, to argue with Lord Voldemort - and for what? To spare Maximilian Caine the man's undivided attention, that he knows not to flee from?

"With the deepest of respect, my lord, Azkaban has left Bella unstable. My mind, however, remains-"

"I will retain Bellatrix, Severus. Until she sees fit as to disobey me, I see no reason to distrust her." Severus allows some small bit of betrayal, of sadness, to show in his face; both are artfully constructed.

"You would distrust _me_ , my lord?"

"Not at all," is the easy reply. But Severus' gambit, it seems, has worked; the Dark Lord pushes Caine from his knee like a disobedient dog. "Leave me, both of you. I would be alone."

"Yes, my lord," Severus and Caine say as one, and they each leave. Severus carefully closes the doors behind them, and he turns to look at Caine, who is standing there, hypnotized.

"Professor Snape," Caine asks, in a whisper. Caine bites his lip, worries it beneath his rather prominent front teeth.

"Yes, Caine?"

"I really thought he would kill me," Caine says. "But I felt that— I thought if I waited until the meeting was over, and he discovered I had not interrupted..." Caine is talking more to himself than to Severus himself, so Severus says nothing: he turns on his heel, and he makes his way from the grounds, Apparating home, to Hogwarts.

He thinks of Caine in Malfoy Manor, sleeping in the bedroom that the Dark Lord has taken for himself, though whether he sleeps, Severus does not know. He knows that Caine sleeps, likely at the foot of the bed, or on the chaise long in the bedroom, but as for Lord Voldemort himself... Such things can hardly be guessed at. Severus would never have believed it, that of the four Caine children, Maximilian would be the one supplicating himself at the Dark Lord's feet...

"Severus?" Filius Flitwick stands in the entrance hall, a dozen rolled-up posters in his arms. "Are you quite alright? You look rather ill."

"I've just seen an animal on the road. Injured, you know, Muggle cars..."

"Did you put it out of its misery?" Filius asks, one of his white, bushy eyebrows raising. "It's only cruel to do otherwise, Severus, if the thing couldn't be saved." There is a second's pause, and Severus gives a small nod of his head.

"Yes, of course I did. Have you need of assistance, Filius?"

"With these? Oh, no, no. They're for Georgina!"

"Who is that?"

"The new accountant," Filius says, and he grins like a fiend. "She's a wonderful girl, Severus."

"I'm going to go to my quarters now, Filius," Severus says, mildly, "And pretend we haven't had this conversation."

"Very well, very well!" Severus begins to walk down toward the dungeons, and he thinks of Caine. When he reaches his quarters, he pours himself a cup of coffee, takes his cauldron off the boil, and promptly vomits into his sink.

 _Did you put it out of its misery? It's only cruel to do otherwise, Severus..._


	113. Year Five: Lycanthropy: A New Spy?

With a sudden crash and a shatter of glass, the goblet hits the point where the wall meets the ceiling. Crystalline pieces of glass rain down, and Harry turns away, waving a wand and focusing once more on _Conjuring_ , feeling the magic run through him and understand as best it can his deep intent: a plate, this time, broad and white, with some messy detailing around its rim. Conjuration is one of the most difficult schools of magic under the umbrella of Transfiguration, and to be sure, it's difficult to Conjure into existence a plate that looks as delicate and satisfying to break as the expensive china in the Black display cases around the house, but...

That's hardly an option.

Harry hurls the plate at the wall with a scream, hears the crash of ceramic coming apart and dropping in messy pieces to the ground: although he throws each and every plate and glass and bowl with all the force he can muster, it doesn't take away the feeling inside him. The clawing, desperate fury, as real to him as the wetness of the tears on his cheeks, and it just isn't enough, isn't enough. With a flick of his wand, he sends the cheap old table - the Silenced anteroom's only remaining furnishing - crashing hard into the wall, scratching the green wallpaper. One of the legs crunches under the force, and Harry's smile is _savage_ more than satisfied.

With a soft click, he hears the door open, and he whirls on his heel. Draco opens the door, steps neatly inside, and closes it behind him; with a calm, collected expression, he neatly examines the room's state of destruction, shards of glass and pot and china littering the ground, one of the window panes shattered and letting a rush of heated air into the room, the wallpaper coming off the walls in some places - but really, there's probably arsenic in the dye anyway - and now, the table, half-destroyed and standing pathetically low at one corner.

Draco arches one silver eyebrow. "Having some problems, Harry?"

"Fuck off," Harry says immediately. He mutters a Reparo under his breath, making a neat loop in the air with his wand, and the table comes back together, the leg straightening as if invisibly set.

"This is my home, you know," Draco says, in a mild and airy tone. "It's hardly pleasant to tell me to fuck off in my own home."

"Fuck. Off." Harry enunciates the fricative sounds in each of the words, drawing out the _f_ , and Draco watches him. His icy eyes ( _he has his father's eyes_ , the thought comes, unbidden) are clouded with thought, and he looks Harry up and down as if Harry is a particularly complex Arithmancy equation.

"What's wrong?" Draco asks, softer now. Harry hurls the table at the wall again, but Draco doesn't so much as flinch, taking a step back and neatly leaning back against the door, his arms crossed over his chest and his left foot flat against the wood. "Nobody can hear you, you know."

"I know. This room is Silenced."

"I just came looking for you. Couldn't find you."

"I was in here."

"Yes." Harry feels stupid, now. The bare satisfaction that the violence and magic was offering him is fading away, replaced with feelings of embarrassment at Draco catching him being so emotional, and he just wants Draco to get out, get out, _get out._

"What's wrong?" Draco repeats.

"Oh, what isn't wrong? For fuck's sake, Draco!" Harry snaps, turning on his heel and walking right up to the other boy. He hates that Draco is taller than him, hates it, hates that he's inherited Narcissa and Lucius' height: he looks up into Draco's face, into his pointy chin and pointy nose and pale cheeks and strong forehead, whatever the fuck that means, and he says, "What haven't I got to be angry about, huh? Voldemort-" Draco flinches, and satisfaction flares inside Harry: that nasty, raging beast that had told him to come in here in the first place purrs its delight, "is back. Your father is dead. More and more people are going to die. And me, what can I do? I can't go out far, because Voldemort will come looking for me! I can't go out for a broom ride, or a walk in London, and not because anybody will stop me, but because it'd be irresponsible of me. I have to choose my own fucking isolation." Harry lets out an irritable groan, swings away from Draco, and he begins to furiously pace the room. He thinks of Adrian King in the little park across from Grimmauld Place, thinks of his hands in Harry's hair and his mouth on Harry's mouth, their legs close on the park bench.

 _"The school year's gonna start soon," Harry murmurs. "This... It's gonna have to sto."_

 _"I'll ring you," Adrian whispers in his ear, his mouth drawing over Harry's skin; even in the dark light of the park, dimly lit by the street lamp some twenty feet away, Harry shudders._

 _"N-no. No outside phonecalls, I'm afraid, except from family."_

 _"I'll say you're my cousin."_

 _"There's a list of accepted numbers."_

 _"I'll email, then."_

 _"No Internet."_

 _"You guys are really in the past, huh? Fine, I'll write." Harry stares at Adrian's face, stares right into his eyes, feels his mouth open, feels it close. "What? You don't have a postal address?"_

 _No, Harry wants to say, We don't have a postal address, and the place is Unplottable, and I can't even tell you to send it to Harry Potter, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, because you're a Muggle and you don't know I'm a wizard!_

 _"I don't think it's a good idea," Harry says instead. Adrian pulls away from him, stares into his eyes. Hurt flashes across his features, and then anger._

 _"Don't you? What, I'm not good enough to send letters to your posh school, huh?"_

 _"No, it's not that-"_

 _"You have a boyfriend?"_

 _"What? No, I-" The accusations hit him in the face, and he's flushing, overwhelmed, unsure what to respond with, how to get the other man to just calm down, and understand... But how can Harry make him understand? How can he tell him why without telling him why?_

 _"No excuses. Tell me why." Harry flounders._

 _"It's not safe," he says finally, which is the best lie he can grasp hold of when put on the spot. "It's complicated, I'm sorry, it's complicated... But it's not safe. I can't."_

 _"Not safe? What, are you in the bloody Mafia?"_

 _"You can't write me, Adrian, I'm sorry."_

 _"So when you go, you go."_

 _"I-"_

 _"Then why not go now?" Adrian stands, runs his hand through his thick, blond hair, and begins to walk away._

 _"Adrian!" Harry calls after him. "Adrian, you can't-" But he doesn't run after him. He doesn't give chase; after a long few moments of sitting on the bench, Harry walks into Grimmauld Place again, finds an empty room in the house, and feels the tears sting hot on his cheeks. Then, he conjures a plate._

"The Dark Lord has been a worry of yours for some years now; my father-" Draco hesitates, almost seeming to choke on the words. The words cut through Harry's reverie like a knife. "That was months ago. Something has triggered this now, something tonight."

"Fuck off," Harry retorts, and Draco's features crumple. Harry doesn't know why he ever let himself believe Adrian and Draco looked at all alike - Draco's features are delicate and his skin is pale, like he's been painted in watercolours. Adrian looks handsome, touchable, _real_. Out-of-reach. Harry conjures a plate and throws it, but the monster isn't satisfied by smashing plates any more, now: _Pin him against the wall. Go on, do it. You've got the knife in your pocket, haven't you? We can do him like we did Stan the man!_

"Wanton destruction doesn't strike me as productive," Draco says. His tone is so mild and even that it actually _angers_ Harry, actually frustrates him even more.

"What would you know?"

"Only what my father taught me." Harry is stopped short by that, and Draco seems to take it as a cue to continue. "When I was angry or frustrated, he made me exercise. It teaches self-control, discipline. You can't allow yourself to just smash things."

"Angry or frustrated, huh?" Harry asks, bitterly. "That explains the muscle he had on his arms."

"You're not angry at my father. Let us not pretend you are," Draco whispers. He says it so softly Harry has to turn to check he really said it at all. Draco has shifted his position slightly, his arms still crossed over his chest, but his stance less confident somehow. "What _is_ it, Harry? Girl trouble?"

"Something like that," Harry says. Something changes in Draco's expression, as if he hadn't expected his first guess to be accurate. Recoiling the barest bit, he looks Harry up and down, blinking his blue eyes slowly as he examines Harry's form.

"I'll leave you to it," Draco says suddenly, and before Harry can respond he has opened the door and slammed it shut, no doubt disappearing to his room - or, Harry supposes sardonically, if he is "angry" or "frustrated", perhaps to the gymnasium. Harry wipes his cheeks with the sleeves of his robe, and then he leaves the room, making his way downstairs and returning to the dining room. His own anger bleeds away like water down the drain, leaving him feeling rather tired, and pensive. Gone are the violent thoughts and the desire for destruction: now Harry just feels slightly empty.

Despite the forty minutes Harry had been gone, the meeting is only just finishing, although Sirius and Narcissa have already left. People filter past him, and Harry sits down in between Cecilia Hayworth and Hestia Jones, waving for Mundungus Fletcher to deal him into their game of cards. With Ted Tonks and Sturgis Podmore, there are six players in all, and although Mundungus Fletcher runs a masterful sleight of hand, Harry is far too used to counting cards for him to get away with it.

Used to the ways of the Slytherin common room, it feels slightly strange to be playing a game without betting money or secrets or even candy, and Harry plays as if on autopilot, barely registering when he wins or loses a hand. At ten o'clock, Andromeda Tonks comes over, putting her hand gently on Hestia's shoulder and murmuring something in her ear. Hestia winces, then she nods, rummaging through the deep pockets of her silver overcoat until she finds a vial of a grey potion. She tilts her head back, putting a droplet of it in each of her eyes, and then another on her tongue.

"What's that?" Harry asks, half-expecting someone to tell him off for doing so, but Hestia just shrugs her shoulders.

"Sturgis and I are accountants, but you know that I used to be an Auror?"

"Mrs Weasley's mentioned it."

"Had to retire in '82. Got Cursed. The potion staves off the worst of it - blindness, muteness, paralysis. The main things. I can't run, though."

"You can't run?"

"Can't run, can't exercise. Can't get too angry or too happy." Hestia lays an ace down on the table surface, drawing a soft " _Bollocks_." out of Ted. "Too much exertion activates its latent effects. I don't know the ins and outs of it, but the potions I take work by convincing the Curse I'm not still alive. If my heart rate goes up, though, it gets a sudden reminder, and begins shutting down whatever it can reach."

"That's awful," Harry murmurs.

"It's a nasty one, Potter," Mad-Eye murmurs. He sits watching their game, clasping hold of his walking stick, his wooden leg stuck out from beneath him. "One of Bartemius Crouch's little inventions."

"Bartemius Crouch?" Harry repeats.

"Not Barty," Ted murmurs. He is squinting at his cards, his glasses pushed up onto the top of his head. "Barty was a good man. No, his son, Bartemius."

"No, I know you don't mean Barty Crouch," Harry murmurs. "Bartemius Junior looked right mad when I saw him, at any rate." There's a pause: five and a half sets of eyes suddenly land on Harry, and he freezes, holding his cards up to his chest like a shield. He looks between each of them, and asks, "What? What did I say?"

"Bartemius Crouch is dead," Mad-Eye says, slowly.

"No, he isn't. Not unless there's many other Death Eaters called Bartemius walking around."

"What are you talking about, Harry?" Hestia asks.

"A few years ago, I had a vision, a little before Voldemort began to return to his full power - one of the Death Eaters was telling him Bartemius Crouch was requesting an audience from his sickbed, and Voldemort said Bartemius could see him when he was capable of standing on his own two feet. Unless you mean he's died since then, which I feel like I'd have heard about."

"Barty Crouch died in Azkaban," Mad-Eye says, squinting with his good eye; the other revolves rapidly in its socket, as if to put across Mad-Eye's fury. "His mother died of grief soon after. That was back in the '80s. I saw the body."

The door opens, and in walks Remus, his hair mussed and his expression a bit wild.

"You never heard of Polyjuice, Mad-Eye?" Harry asks, and he drops his cards, standing from the table. He feels Mad-Eye's magical gaze on his back, and then he hears a bark of laughter behind him, but Harry doesn't turn around. He looks at Remus carefully, frowning slightly, and then he reaches out, very gently touching one of his arms. "Shall we, uh, go for a walk, Moony?" Remus is already loping from the room by virtue of his long legs, and Harry follows him. Harry turns and walks up the stairs, heading up a few of the flights; the bookshelf that covers the final flight has already been pushed aside, and so he leads Remus up to the roof garden.

As they'd been cleaning Grimmauld Place, Harry had enjoyed spending time in the garden. Rarely did he actually do anything; usually, Harry would sit on the balcony, sometimes beside Draco, sometimes alone, and speak to Lucius as he worked on his plants. The garden had taken very little time to flourish, and it had been Harry who had suggested the Lightning Lilies, which flare and tingle beneath his fingers as he strokes over their wide petals. He sees that the Choral Bushes have been pruned, and he takes away the clippings from beneath them, sweeping them together to Vanish.

As he does all this, Remus paces up and down the garden's marble floor, which is ineffectual, as the garden is only ten feet or so wide, and perhaps twenty feet across - with Remus' long legs, there isn't all that much to pace.

"Do you want to talk about it?" Harry asks.

"No," Remus says immediately. Harry walks to the edge of the roof garden's balcony, pulling himself up onto the wall and sitting on it, his back facing the city of London behind him. "It's not- It's not really your concern." Harry swings his legs slightly beneath him, watching the other man anxiously run his hands through his hair, and he waits. Remus, at his very core, is a talkative man: as much as he keeps stuff bottled up, it's genuinely in his nature to talk through his feelings and make them clear to everybody around him, to voice his opinions. "I was speaking to Albus."

"What did Albus have to say?" Harry asks, evenly. For the barest second, Harry forgets who Remus could possibly mean, and then he realizes. It's strage, calling the headmaster by his first name, but it's not as if he'll be doing it to the old man's face, and it seems to keep Remus on track.

"He- During the First War, I was a spy," Remus murmurs. His eyes are always moving as he seems to search the middle distance for some answers, as if some life-changing idea is going to spring to him, fully-formed, from the ether. "Well... I was an informant. Werewolves in Britain, they can't get work, nobody will offer us lodgings... We tend to be poor, forced to move often from place to place. That means werewolves band together, sometimes, and there was a werewolf-" Remus bites his lip. "I shouldn't tell you this. Harry, you're a child, I'll tell Sirius."

"Did he ask you to spy for him again?" Harry asks, keeping his gaze on Remus' eyes, but they widen, and the older man shakes his head.

"No, no, he'd never do that," Remus says. Harry feels that strange tiredness in him, of that emotional lack no that he has tired himself out throwing plates and screaming at the walls, and he wonders if Remus would feel any benefit from the same thing. "No. He was merely informing me on the situation."

"What is the situation?"

"Fenrir Greyback has been gathering contacts within the lycanthrope community. He's a terrifying man, Harry, a terrifying... Barely a man." Remus speaks in a whisper, so that Harry has to strain to hear him. "And nobody else in the Order is a werewolf: they have no window into that group. But me, me, I could. I did it before: I've no family to speak of, and to help the Order." Harry frowns at Remus, furrowing his brow slightly, and he takes in what the other man says with some scepticism. "It would mean I'd have to leave the flat, of course, I couldn't- They'd smell it on me, if I was living comfortably. Know I was out of place."

Harry says, very quietly, "So what you're suggesting is that you quit your job, go back to your clothes, and go back to not eating, or sleeping at night. Abandoning Sirius. Let me guess - Wolfsbane is quite expensive, so you wouldn't be able to have that either, would you? What, you all just run around in packs?" Remus is staring at Harry, his mouth slightly open. "Remus, everything you just said sounds completely insane."

"But- but I-"

"No family, seriously? What, me and Sirius are just roommates, are we?"

"Of course not! But this is important."

"Why can't Dumbledore pick someone who's already in with the pack? You're not the only trustworthy werewolf in the world." Remus seems lost, opening his mouth, closing it again. "Remus, it doesn't have to be you. It shouldn't be you. You're happy now, aren't you? Painting, living with Sirius?"

"Of course I am, but this isn't about me, Harry," Remus says, half-desperately. He steps closer, no longer pacing but staying still in one spot. He looks down at Harry, his hazel eyes full of pain, his pale lips parted. "This is something I can offer the Order, something I can genuinely do to help."

"How many hexes do you know?" Harry asks, softly. Remus' brow furrows. "It's over a hundred, right? Do you really think the only help you can give the Order is without your wand, howling at the moon? I know what that transformation does to you, Remus. I might not know where you and Sirius disappear off to every month after you take your potion, but it puts the most horrendous of pressures on your body, rips you apart and builds you up again as something monstrous, and I know that in the past two years, you've actually put on weight. You look like someone who won't snap in half at the next wind, you look... Not healthy. But like you have something to live for, except for more bloody pain. Do you really want to give that up? Do you really think you deserve to?"

The shadow that passes over Remus' face sinks deep inside Harry, and all at once, the monster reels and roars. Harry feels like going out of here and ripping apart the Werewolf Registration office himself, feels like murdering everybody who ever read Lycanthropy: A New Plague, feels like going right up to Voldemort and punching him in the alabaster throat. He doesn't do any of those things: he pushes himself off the edge of the balcony wall, throws his arms around Remus, and wraps him in a hug.

Remus seems surprised at it, but he hugs Harry's back, leans his chin into Harry's chair, holds him tightly.

 _War_.

And it hasn't even fucking started yet.

Above them, the thick grey clouds in the sky are forced along by a light wind, and moonlight comes brightly down onto the roof garden. It's a half-moon, thick and white and luminescent, and under its rays, the Choral Bushes begin to sing. It's a soft song, eerie and high, without words, and Harry and Remus listen to it for a long, long time, before they silently go down the stairs to wait for the result from the Ministry of Magic.

 **~ ϟ ~ THE LERNAEAN HYDRA ~ ϟ ~**

" **YOU-KNOW-WHO ORDERED TO SURRENDER!"** Arthur Weasley reads from the Daily Prophet to an absolutely rapt dining room. Arthur begins to read the statement itself, and Harry feels himself tune out. Cornelius Fudge's stumbling style is immediately recognizable, and it's a good job the Daily Prophet decided to give it a headline, as he knows Fudge would never have bothered to give a simple summary. In short, Narcissa and Sirius' motion in the Wizengamot has been voted through: if Lord Voldemort doesn't surrender his wand (a symbolic gesture, Harry supposes) to the Ministry of Magic before midnight of September 5th, 1995, the Ministry will declare a State Of Emergency.

It's better, he guesses, than declaring a "State of War, but Civil War, but not exactly, it's actually hard to describe."

At 2:04AM, the door opens, and in walk Narcissa and Sirius: immediately, the Order members gathered burst into applause. Narcissa looks exhausted, her eyes darkly lidded, and Sirius looks irritable enough to kill a man, but at the claps and few cheers, the two of them grin.

Well. Narcissa smiles politely, anyway.

As Dumbledore moves to leave, Harry follows him out into the hall, and he says, "Headmaster, if I might have a moment of your time?" Dumbledore seems surprised, his blue eyes turning on Harry with a seeming perplexity shining in them for a moment, and then they are just shining for no reason at all. "I'll walk you back to Hogwarts, if that's okay." A soft smile crosses Dumbledore's expression, and he gives a nod of his head. They step out onto the balcony, and Harry offers Dumbledore his arm: the older man takes it graciously, even though Harry is nearly a foot shorter than him, and Harry closes his eyes as he feels the familiar tight tube sensation of Apparition.

"You, of course, will begin to learn Apparition in your sixth year," Dumbledore says conversationally.

"It's a weird sensation," Harry admits. "I almost prefer portkeys, I have to admit. Is that on any of our syllabi?"

"Oh, no," Dumbledore says, shaking his head. "Portkeys are rather complicated magic that require an understanding of both Charms and Arithmancy, and, ah, truth be told, Harry..." Dumbledore reaches up and taps the side of his long, prominent nose, which seems crooked, as if it has been broken several times before. "The Board of Governors would rather we not spread it around too much." Harry chuckles. "I've always found, however, that there is a certain trick to it..."

Hogsmeade is brightly lit by the moon.

Although London had been cloudy, the sky above Hogsmeade is completely clear, and Harry matches Dumbledore's slow, easy gait as they begin to walk up the hill toward the castle. Dumbledore's robes, the skirt of which is down nearly to his toe, are a periwinkle blue, and silver embroidery of the constellations shines in the light as they move. Harry has to wonder where Dumbledore gets these wonderful, magical robes: they don't feel like dress robes, despite the incredible intricacy of them, and nor do they ever make someone feel like Dumbledore is an especially superior person. If anything, they add to his demeanour of a kindly old man, with their subtle charm. The monster inside him growls, but Harry ignores it. Dumbledore is no more an enemy than Hedwig is.

"What would you like to speak with me about, Harry?"

"Our policy on spies, sir," Harry says.

"Perhaps a muffling charm would be appropriate."

"Yes, sir," Harry agrees, and he watches Dumbledore's easy wand movement. He feels the slight sphere of magic around them, and he reaches out, passing his fingers through the invisible ward: there is no real physical sensation, except for the slight, internal brush of his magic against the miniature ward, but Harry frowns slightly. He is reminded of television static. "I was talking to Remus a few hours ago. He seemed to think he should go back to spying on the werewolves."

"If Remus has come to that decision," Dumbledore says slowly, shaking his head slightly. "I will accept him as a volunteer."

"No, you won't," Harry says. "Sir... I have to admit, I'm quite surprised at you. I don't know what you said to him, under the guise of "informing him about the situation," but whatever it was, it's not on. He said you'd never ask him to volunteer, and that much is true, I'm sure, but there's something to be said for implying you desperately need someone for a job and have nobody except him to do it. Remus came away thinking of quitting his job, leaving the flat. And—Well. You know about the nature of his and Sirius' relationship."

"I'm sure I don't know what you mean, Harry."

"Well, Professor, _I'm_ sure you _do_ ," Harry challenges, and he sees Dumbledore softly sigh. Just outside of the Hogwarts gates, he turns to examine Harry, and for a second puts one of his old, wizened hands on Harry's shoulder. The touch is featherlight, and doesn't last for long.

"I'm sorry, Harry," Dumbledore murmurs quietly. "This war... It has come upon us all at once, hasn't it? Let me speak honestly with you." The gates open wide, and as they begin to walk up the hill, the gates slowly close behind them with a creak. "Sacrifices must be made, Harry. As Voldemort spreads his influence, we must be there to meet him: just as we have done our best to place our allies in Ireland, in France, and in other exiled communities, we must not forget the werewolves. So often forgotten by our society, they are vulnerable to Voldemort's manipulations in a way so few others are. It is essential we know what promises might be made to them, where they might strike... We know already that Remus can be trusted, and that he has performed most admirably at this work before."

"So admirably my parents believed he might have been a traitor," Harry points out. "Have you never wondered about that?" Dumbledore frowns, slightly, turning to Harry with concern on his face.

"You believe Remus to be a traitor? After all he has done for you?"

"No, Headmaster," Harry says. "I believe that whatever that situation was, whatever it was like being part of Voldemort's werewolf cabal, he had to get so into it he even convinced his best friends that he was going dark. That he was enjoying it. Can you imagine what it must be like in Remus' head? If he didn't get into that role, he was as good as dead, and could no longer feedback to the Order: he got so into it that his friends couldn't trust him anymore, and trusted a _real_ Death Eater. Pettigrew. With the greatest of respect, sir, I don't feel it's ethical to send Remus back to a situation like that, especially not when he's the healthiest he's been in years. If he survives this war, Headmaster, only to drop dead of a heart attack or organ failure, what will you say to Sirius? What will you say to me?" Something deep in Dumbledore's eyes seems to change, and he seems to soften slightly. Harry wishes for a moment that he was some kind of Legilimens, that he could know what the old man was thinking, what he was going to say next.

"I think we might dispense with the titles, my boy." Harry blinks. Of _all_ things, he wasn't expecting that.

"Sorry?"

"Albus will do," the old man says kindly, and he looks up the length of the hill. Silhouetted by a backdrop of stars, the castle looks beautiful, and Harry is glad there is only two weeks between him and his return to its halls.

"I confess to you, Harry, I never thought on this matter from that particular perspective," Dumbledore says quietly, his voice shaking with age. He doesn't seem frail at all, not to Harry, but for the barest few moments, Albus Dumbledore seems slightly vulnerable. "Do you talk on these matters often at home?"

"No," Harry says. "Remus talks sometimes, and I listen, but we don't talk about the War. Sirius and Remus both just talk about the before, and the after. Never about the War itself."

"Does that not frustrate you?" Dumbledore asks: the monster gnashes its teeth, says yes, yes, _yes_!

"No," Harry decides. "I can't get angry at them. Not for that." He puts his hands in his pockets, watching as Dumbledore waves his hands and the gate to the courtyard (usually open wide at all hours of the day) allows them through. The doors to the entrance hall require no such instruction: as soon as the gate closes behind them, those doors open, seemingly beckoning them into the welcoming coolness of the castle. The magic of Hogwarts seems to settle on Harry's skin as soon as they step inside, and at a clatter, he turns his head. Momentarily, Dumbledore dispels the ward around them.

"Argus," he says, pleadingly. "Go to bed, my friend." Judging by Dumbledore's rather desperate tone, and by the way Filch jumps a mile, they have had this discussion a few times before.

"This statue 'as to be polished!" Filch says irritably. "Headmaster, I can't bloody well leave it - I'm halfway through!" Filch seems positively indignant at the thought, and Harry stares. The statue of the first Headmaster of Hogwarts, who nobody knows the name of, seems to glisten in the light. The bottom half of it positively shimmers, no doubt as a result of the carefully crafted goblin's gold, and the upper half is dull and thick with grime, as Harry has always known it.

"It looks incredible, Mr Filch," Harry says. "I had no idea it looked like that underneath."

"You saying I don't do my job right?" Filch demands immediately, whirling on Harry, and Harry gives him a look.

"Do you think I'm that stupid?"

"You rude little- Headmaster, he-"

"Harry paid you a compliment, Argus." The Headmaster says, patiently. Loudly grumbling about disrespect, Filch takes up his bucket and his scrubber, irritably disappearing through the slightly ajar door into the great hall, and Harry sighs. It never seems to go well, even if he's as nice to Filch as it's within his power to be. Dumbledore reapplies their muffling charm, and Harry gives a longing look at Mrs Norris, who daintily passes them by. "She does look very soft, doesn't she?" Harry glances at Dumbledore, and then grins.

"I like cats. Theo Nott has one - Winston, his name is. Sometimes I wake up lying on him instead of my pillow."

"I'm terribly allergic to them," Dumbledore admits, as if telling Harry an embarrassing childhood secret. "Mrs Norris was once so kind as to allow me to scratch her ears, and my hand promptly coloured with hives. A rather dramatic overreaction of my immune system, Madam Pomfey declared it to be."

"You're a bit unlucky, really, aren't you-" Harry hesitates, and then says, "Albus. That's weird. Are you sure about this?"

"We are speaking as equals, Harry. It is only appropriate. In the school itself, of course, my title would fit, but... Well. I fear you are more man than boy, as these days pass us by. You would truly stop Remus from volunteering?"

"It's not that," Harry says, shaking his head. "It's just that it's a lot to ask him to sacrifice, and for something any werewolf could do. Remus is a huge asset as a duellist, sir, and as someone who can be called on to lead in a crisis. Sending him off to live in poverty, it… It rankles with me a lot. I think Remus has had enough hardship in his life, and to pile more on strikes me as unjust."

"War is not just, Harry."

"But you can be. Sir, I wasn't even there, and I know what you did. You played on his low self-esteem, his stupid Gryffindor rashness, and his overpowering feeling that he owes you something - and don't get me wrong, I appreciate that you're the reason he came to Hogwarts in the first place, and I'm so glad. I'm so grateful. But he's not a pawn in a chess game, sir. You can't ask him to do something like this, even if you ask him without asking him."

"Do you really think that's fair, Harry?" Dumbledore asks. His tone is even, but Harry doesn't believe he completely imagines the undercurrent of hurt.

"This isn't a confrontation, sir. I'm not angry, and I don't believe that I have any control over you, but I'm just saying something that I know a lot of people wouldn't say to you, because they respect you too much, or admire too much. Albus, to be completely honest, I can't be certain that I can trust you. I know you're trying to do the best for all of us, and leading the Order must be difficult; I know that sacrifices must be made... But not by him. This is the first time in his entire life, in nearly forty years, that he can lie down in a bed next to someone he loves, and know for certain that he's safe, and stable, and that the rug isn't going to be pulled out from under him if someone discovers his condition. Do you understand what I mean? Do you understand why Remus, specifically, means so much to me right now?"

"I do," Dumbledore murmurs as they come down the corridor to his office. "Ah, here is Severus." Harry meets Snape's gaze, but Snape seems to know immediately there is a ward around them, and immediately walks some way down the hall, politely turning his back. Harry looks at Snape's thin shoulders under the fabric of his cloak, at his stiff, straight form. "The professors at Hogwarts... You're not going to be sending them anywhere, are you? To do some stupid, risky thing?"

"Why would you think that, Harry?" Dumbledore asks, in so innocent a tone that Harry has to question if he has accidentally hit a vein.

"The people here have greater responsibilities than war. The children need to know the staff are united in protecting them, that none of them are going missing or... We need them here. The children, they should feel safe. And the prefects, maybe..." Harry feels Dumbledore's intense gaze upon him before he sees it, and he meets Dumbledore's eyes. He Occludes, of course, but he has no idea whether Dumbledore is a Legilimens, or even if Harry would feel it if he were.

"The children?" Dumbledore repeats.

"You think I'm wrong?"

"You speak of the students in the third person, Harry, as if you aren't one of them." He's right, Harry realizes. He'd even been thinking of Hermione, Draco, Ron - the twins, even, about to go into their sixth year - as much as the first and second years, but himself? He's a student, of course, but a child? He doesn't feel much like a child these days. Harry looks to Snape, and he presses his lips together.

"You should dispel the charm. He must have been waiting for you: it's probably important. Albus- That's so strange, are you sure?"

"Quite sure."

"Thank you," Harry says, genuinely. "And when I said-" Harry puts his hand on his forehead, and sighs. "I didn't mean I didn't trust you. I know that's what I said, but that's not... I just meant..."

"I know," Dumbledore murmurs. "Thank you for being so honest. The year ahead will be difficult for us all, particularly upon you. I want you to feel I'm taking your opinions into account: regardless of whether you trust me, I want you to understand that I trust you, Harry. To do what is right." Dumbledore dispels the charm. "Severus, how kind of you to visit. The three of us will just go into my office."

"May I use your Floo, Albus?" Harry says, and he has to feel an inward note of delight at the way Snape's head whips to look at him.

"Of course, of course," Dumbledore says, cheerily, and tells the statue outside his office, " _Blackjacks_."


	114. Year Five: Spirits In Decline

At around twenty past two in the morning, Severus hears the alarm he'd set begin to ring, and he looks up from his book. The book, a gift that Christmas from Lucius, is all about alternative trends in brewing. The chapter Severus had been reading is about a new American school of thought that utilizes a cauldron made into a sort of square, with four connecting troughs, with the potion moving around the square's four corners on a current. It all strikes Severus as rather modern, but the actual implications of such simple changes to the existing constructs are interesting ones, even if other chapters within the book are nothing more than nonsense.

Severus flicks to the front of the book: the cover page is full of signatures, with all of the major contributors having signed the page at Lucius' request, and Severus turns over the page, examining the inscription on the page Lucius had inserted into the book.

 _Dear Severus,_

 _I know all those little autographs will strike you as rather tawdry, but rest assured in some years this book will be worth rather something, particularly as Mr Diamond has died in the months between his signing this and my Christmas gift to you._

 _Take from it what you can, and if it offers you nothing, sell it on._

 _With all my love,_

 _Lucius_

The vast majority of the books that Lucius has bought Severus over the past few years have been near-perfect purchases, and Severus knows if he looks through each of them, the letter within will advise him to sell on the book if it isn't to his tastes, expensive as so many of them are...

But Severus doesn't.

He never does.

Standing, he sets the book upon his table and summons his socks and boots, pulling each on once more. From the counter, Severus' cat watches him with a hard stare, as if to express objection to his leaving his quarters so late at night. Fantôme lets out a sudden, sharp sound that sounds less like a miaow and more like a feline curse word, and Severus ignores it, picking up his cloak and sweeping from the room.

Fantôme will occasionally follow him as he makes his rounds of the castle at night, particularly during the summer time, and she follows him now: in stark comparison to Severus himself, who is a line of black except for the whiteness of his face and hands and collar, Fantôme is a cloud of thick white fur, with only a black nose and black socks seeming to form around her paws.

Another gift from Lucius. Fantôme is nearly nine now, but Kneazles can easily live for thirty or forty years.

Severus begins to make his way up the spiral staircase that leads into the upper halls of the school, and Fantôme falls away from him; she prefers to linger in the dark corridors of the dungeons or out in the grounds, finding the occasional rat or mouse. She is positively mythical among the children, as she refuses to allow any of them to touch her, and it never occurs to any of them that the _staff_ may have pets.

Severus' favourite of the Slytherin theories is that Fantôme is, in fact, the Animagus form of Albus Dumbledore. It rather _upsets_ the old man that any of the children could believe him so unpleasant.

The walk up to the Headmaster's office puts no strain at all on Severus, so used as he is to roaming the halls of Hogwarts at any hour, and he ascends yet another staircase into the corridor the Headmaster's office joins onto: the movements of the main staircases make Severus feel uncertain and slightly dizzy, no matter how much he studies their regular schedules, and he prefers to use the narrower, lesser used stairwells in the corners of shadowed halls.

Albus often says, with a chuckle, that it adds to Severus' mystique: Severus resents this commentary too much to respond to it with anything more than an arched eyebrow.

As he steps into the hallway, he sees that Albus is not alone, and even from here he feels the shimmer of magic that makes up a muffling charm on the air. Politely, he turns his back on Albus and Potter, taking some steps down the corridor and facing the other direction. He can read lips well enough, and he shouldn't like some accusation from Albus that he is being less than fair. He hears through the haze of magic the sound of the boy speaking, and then Albus, but what the words are, he cannot make out.

There's a lingering buzzing in his ears, and he presses his thin lips together: there is a certain irony in Albus using Severus' own spells against him.

"Severus, how kind of you to visit," Albus says, and Severus turns to walk closer, meeting the older man's gaze before looking to Potter. There's some redness around his eyes, mostly faded, and Severus is certain his "meeting" did not go well. A _Muggle_ – what did the boy expect? "The three of us will just go into my office." Severus gives an inclination of his head, opening his mouth to speak, but—

"May I use your Floo, Albus?" Severus feels his head shift rapidly to the side, leaving him _staring_ at Potter. He feels the surprise obvious on his face, in the wideness of his eyes, and he soon schools his expression back to neutrality, but it is too late. He looks at the back of Albus' head as he walks toward the statute, and Severus feels himself fall into step beside Potter.

"Of course, of course," he says. " _Blackjacks_." Severus stands beside Potter on the stair, feeling the stone grind as they each rise toward the Headmaster's office, and Severus cannot resist examining the boy when his face is turned away. Potter looks to have lost some weight over the course of the summer, but he is not alone. Draco is looking thinner by the day, despite exercising with a certain furious passion, and the only children retaining their usual appetites are the Weasleys.

"It's good to see you, Professor," Potter says, as if they hadn't passed each other in the hall not a few hours ago, and Severus frowns at him. "How are you feeling?"

"I am quite well, Potter," Severus responds, wondering what could be wrong with the boy _now_ , to prompt such a strange and pointed question. As they enter the office, Albus calls something vague over his shoulder and disappears through the door into his quarters, leaving Severus and Potter alone: this only prompts more suspicion on Severus' part.

"Someone was pruning the garden," Potter says. _Ah._ "I cleaned up the trimmings, but I assume…?"

"Yes," Severus says.

"The bushes were singing earlier, when the moon came out. They seemed quite relieved." Ought it touch him, Severus wonders, to hear the boy speak thus? Is he merely saying what he believes Severus wishes to hear, or making small-talk? Potter has a great many notions about him, and it is often difficult to predict what his motivations may be, as simple a boy as he often seems.

Potter walks away from him slightly, standing in the path of the fire, and as he looks around the room, Severus is surprised to feel an unfamiliar emotion in his chest: a twinge of _fear_. There is a greater change in the boy's face, it seems to him, than a loss of weight: there are more lines, more definitions in the bone, than Severus has ever seen in the boy. Potter looks like a _man_ , older and wiser, somehow, than he has seemed to Severus in times past. He is barely fifteen, and yet looks ready to command greater magics…

The fear is strange to him.

Potter does not resemble the Death Eater youth Severus had admired at the boy's age: even looking back, Severus knows those boys has never seemed _older_ to him, but only more mature, more powerful. Potter seems to abruptly be all three, and Severus feels the fear mingle with anger in his belly.

What right has Albus, after all, to craft this child into a weapon of war, older beyond his years?

"You and the Headmaster have been arguing?" Potter's green gaze turns to Severus. His mother had never looked that old, not in all the years she lived.

"How did you know?"

"He offers himself as Albus to his genuine critics," Severus says, his tone airy to distract from the fact that he is sharing a secret of sorts. "Whether it is a manipulation or a genuine measure of respect, I could not tell you." Fawkes, that bastard bird, lets out a disapproving caw, but Severus ignores it, flicking his hair from his eyes.

Potter is giving Severus an appraising look, as if he has never heard an adult criticize Albus Dumbledore before – which, of course, is quite ridiculous. In all his life, Severus has never known a man to criticize Albus more than Lucius Malfoy had.

"That doesn't surprise me," Potter murmurs quietly, a slight smile appearing on his face. He stands up straight, his hands in his pockets, and the glass of his spectacles glint in the light of the fire. "Yes, we were. Just about, you know… Ethics, war. Teleology."

"Do you know what teleology is, Potter?"

"Yes, thank you," Potter replies mildly, but he grins, showing his teeth: it is plain to Severus that his question has neither offended nor hit a weak spot. Potter is not as prideful as his father, not anywhere close. "Teleology: the idea that stuff should be looked at by like, the purpose it serves. Instead of, for example, what caused it to happen."

Not the _cleanest_ of definitions, but it is comprehensible enough, and Severus gives a small inclination of his head.

Potter seems to be hesitating for a moment, and then he says, "Lucius, he said to me once that Hogwarts used to have literature on its syllabus."

"Yes," Severus answers.

There's a pause between them, until Potter asks, "Why did you stop teaching that?"

"Many of the non-practical courses were felt to be a waste of time, in the lead up to the First War," Severus answers delicately. It is strange, to speak of such things outside of the Hogwarts staff room, and with so astute a listener. "I studied English Literature in my first and second years, on Saturday mornings, with Professor Desmond Hastings."

"He retired?"

"He was murdered in the summer of my third year." Potter stares at him, his lips parted, and Severus adds, "He had been petitioning the Board of Governors to allow the addition of Muggle literature to the syllabus. Wilde, Woolf, Dickens and Shelley, to name but a few of the Muggle authors he admired, despite being a Pureblood himself. Hogwarts has a great variety in its schooling through the epochs, of course: Albus has OWLs in Philosophy and in Musical Theory, not to mention a NEWT in Ancient Greek."

"Severus has an OWL in German," Albus says proudly from the corner of the room. Severus purses his lips.

"Yes," Severus says, reluctantly. Potter has a faraway look in his eyes, as if an entirely new world has been opened up to him.

"Your German teacher… He was murdered too?"

"Frau Heinrich? She, to my awareness, has a retirement home in the Swiss Alps," Severus replies, and Harry laughs.

"How come you didn't replace the teachers in subjects like that? Literature and German or, uh, Musical Theory?"

"It has been tried," Albus murmurs. "We have been planning a revitalization for several years now, returning more non-practical options to our syllabus, but in recent years, priorities have changed. Perhaps when the war is through, we will return to our plans."

"Perhaps," Severus echoes, with little faith. Potter takes a little Floo Power from the embellished pot upon the mantel, and he yells an address on Argyle Street before disappearing into the green flames. Severus turns to Albus, who is leaning on his desk, his hands neatly clasped before him. "What was he here for?" Severus asks, arching an eyebrow at the older man. "I had grasped you were in disagreement."

"We were speaking on the subject of spies," Albus says mildly. "He was concerned for you, actually." Severus feels some of the blood drain from his features, and he stares at Albus, positively astonished and with alarm ringing through his shaking voice.

"You didn't—"

"No, my boy, of course I didn't," Albus interrupts him, raising a hand. "You must have trust in me."

"Must I?"

"He worries that if you or another of the staff is lost in some mission for the Order of the Phoenix, the children will feel less safe within these walls." Severus steps toward the fire, feeling its warmth in the room, even as his brow slightly furrows.

"The children?" he repeats, tasting the oddity of the phrasing on his tongue. Albus has a tendency to paraphrase or even quote those he speaks with, and Severus doesn't imagine he would have designed this sentence without Potter's own words in mind. "He doesn't think of himself as one of them?"

"It would seem not," Albus says. The old man looks more and more tired, as each day passes them by. A part of Severus that he hates, that he is ashamed of, feels _sympathy_. The rest of him feels only a vague satisfaction. "I confess, Severus, I worry for him, and yet…"

"And yet?" Severus asks, slowly. Albus' gaze is faraway, his eyes full of thought, and he slowly shakes his head, his long hair shifting behind his shoulders, his left hand slowly stroking the thick whiteness of his beard.

"He seems strong," Albus murmurs. "Even with his falling at the hands of Lord Voldemort—" Severus prevents himself from flinching, but his distaste must show, as a knowing look shows on Albus face, "he seems to be unerring. He was asking that I display more feeling in my actions."

"Really? The great Albus Dumbledore, show more sympathy? I had no idea such things were possible."

"Sarcasm suits you ill, Severus," Albus says, his tone cold and his gaze stern.

"A pity nothing suits me better, then." He has learned to stand his ground when Albus attempts to scold at him, stupid as it seems, and he feels the urge to pace the room come swiftly to him. He looks into the fire and forces himself to stay still in his place. "The Wizengamot were called to vote this evening, it seems."

"The vote passed some minutes ago," Albus says. He slowly makes his way around his desk, settling himself into his chair with an exaggerated difficulty, and Severus feels _powerless_ , as he always does in this office.

"The Dark Lord called us to meet," Severus says quietly. "We were interrupted by young Maxie Caine, who of course saw his family members called to the Wizengamot chamber." Albus is examining the papers scattered on his desk, looking over the various papers Severus is certain he has no interest in, and Severus sets his jaw. " _Albus_." The old man looks up at Severus over the half-moon of his glasses, and Severus says, "It has gone too far. You _must_ do something."

"What do you suggest I do, Severus?" Albus asks quietly, and he is watching Severus in that appraising way Severus hates most, as if Albus is seeing Severus portray emotions for the very first time, and it is a fascination for him. "Would you have me whisk the boy away, and against his will?" Severus clenches his fists as his sides, his lips pressed tightly together: he often shows his true emotions with Albus, in a way he could never with the artifice of himself he keeps to hand when he is in the presence of the Dark Lord.

"He is nothing but a toy at the Dark Lord's hand," Severus says. He can see it before him now, see Caine thrown between each of the Dark Lord's servants at the barest step out of place, see him laid over the Dark Lord's lap as little more than an ill-kept dog. "He thinks he might be permitted a Dark Mark, be permitted to truly _serve_ him, but he shall not, Albus! He can hardly be _convinced_ to… If the Order were to capture him, allow him to listen to reason—"

"Why should we capture him, Severus? As you say, he is not a true servant. He is not even permitted to attend the meetings of the Inner Circle, is he?" Albus can be so shrewd, when it suits him

"What does that matter?" Severus demands, wheeling on the headmaster and staring him in the face. "This is for the boy's _safety_ , Albus, not for the information he might offer."

"Then he should come to me," Albus says. "And ask for my help."

"Ask for your—" Severus stops himself, stares into the ether. "What could he ask you for? The boy's a _Squib,_ Albus!" He spits the word, spits it and hates himself for doing it. "What could be hope for? An apprenticeship beneath Filch?"

"You seem attached to the boy."

"I'm not _attached_ to the boy!" He feels his rage in his belly and in the back of his throat, burning inside him like some fire desperate to be unleashed, and he says, desperately, feverishly, "Albus, how can you believe it is anything but our fault? Each year we let him return, each year, we let him sit in classes he had no _hope_ of learning from, and here he is so desperate for acknowledgement that he has fallen at the foot of the Dark Lord himself. There is no place for him in the world of magic, but he has spent so _long_ here he couldn't function outside it – no other Squib would have him! Don't you feel responsible?" It is the most Severus has spoken uninterrupted in months, and he feels the weight of Albus' gaze upon him like a heavy winter cloak.

Severus waits for two long moments, and then says softly, "You saved _me_ , Albus." He hates to admit it. The knowledge is like a bitter weight in his lungs and on his conscience: Albus saved Severus, and Severus never asked for it, _never_. He asked that Albus save Lily – and Albus hadn't. But save _him_?

Severus Snape has never desired to be saved.

"There is too much at risk, Severus," Albus says softly. "He does not leave Malfoy Manor except to return to his family home, and I fear that may change too, soon enough. He seems to visit his family less and less."

"Why should he?" Severus asks. "Even the Dark Lord's cruelties are peppered with the occasional affectionate word. He hardly receives such _kindness_ among his family. Great wizards and witches, every one of them."

"If you can take Maxie Caine away from Voldemort's influence, Severus, I might help you find him lodgings. But there is a limit—" Severus stops listening. He stops listening to Albus' well-reasoned excuses and kindly corrections, is numb to it all, and he turns away from Albus. It all washes over him, Albus' quiet words, until Albus says, "And what of Malfoy Junior?"

"What of him?" Severus asks. "He grieves for his father. In recent weeks, he seems to have improved on that front: he has returned to his gymnastics, and he seems to be completing his schoolwork." There it is, then: Maxie Caine has already been left by the wayside. What does a boy like that matter to Albus Dumbledore?

"You don't think he may follow in his father's footsteps?" Albus asks, and Severus watches him for a long few moments.

"What criticisms did Potter lay at your doorstep, Albus?" Severus' tone is soft and cold and stiff. "Has he yet realized the kind of man you _are_?"

"Is that all, Severus?" Albus asks, and Severus says nothing more: he sweeps from the room, going quickly down the stairs from the man's office and out into the hall. His footfalls make absolutely no sound at all on the stone floor, and he almost resents the silence of it, despite its being a result of his own charms.

It is nearly three in the morning, now, and Severus knows he will not sleep the night through.

"Severus!" Arm-in-arm-in-arm, Severus is met with Poppy, Minerva and Pomona. Pomona is red in the face, Minerva is giggling every few seconds, and between them, Poppy is swaying with a grin on her face. "What's wrong?" Pomona asks immediately, and she stumbles forwards, reaching for his hand. Pomona's hands are clean, but her fingernails are filthy, and yet Severus doesn't whip his hand back away from her.

"You were in Albus' office, hmm?" Minerva asks. She nods her head very sagely, squinting slightly. Her glasses are askew.

"The Three Broomsticks closed," Poppy says miserably. "Rozzie walked us up to the 're going to the staff room."

"The staff room?" Severus repeats. Minerva stumbles forwards and puts her hand on Severus' shoulder, looking down into his eyes. It hardly seems fair that she gets to be both taller _and_ drunker than him, does it?

"We have six bottles of firewhiskey stashed behind the loose brick under the noticeboard," Poppy whispers, and then makes shushing movements with her fingers. "Come get drunk with us!" Severus looks between Pomona, clutching hold of Severus' hand as if it is one of her plant leaves, and to Minerva, who is leaning heavily on his shoulder.

He really _should_ say no. The three of them are more than drunk enough, and it is doubtless that Severus ought be the responsible adult here and put the three of them to bed.

"Very well," he says mildly, and he lets them lead him to the staff room like a black-clad horse to water.

**ϟ** **~ THE LERNAEAN HYDRA ~** **ϟ**

There is a pain in his head. The pulsing is deep and painful, vibrating through his body and making his head ache whenever it pulses, and it takes Severus some long seconds to realize that slow, rhythmic pain as the sound of his own pounding heart.

"Hangover cure," he says, and he feels like he has spent the last night gargling pieces of broken glass.

"Sleep," Poppy replies, her voice muffled against the soft armchair she is tightly hugging. A groan comes from the corner of the room, and Severus blearily looks through half-closed eyes to see Minerva sprawled over Pomona's belly, the two of them still completely unconscious.

"Fair," Severus grinds out, and he closes his eyes tightly, tips his head back, and ignores the dryness in his mouth. This, he muses, was extremely irresponsible of him… But what does it matter?

He hears the door of the staff room open, hears the soft, " _Oh my_ ," of Filius Flitwick, and then hears the door close.

Despite the aching pain in his head, Severus manages a smile.


	115. Year Five: Decisions Made

_Dear Mr. Potter,_

 _We are delighted to welcome you back for your fifth year of schooling here at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. This is a very important year, as it will conclude with your OWL exams. Just to confirm, you are currently enrolled for the following O.W.L. exams:_

· _Defence Against The Dark Arts*_

· _Herbology*_

· _Potions*_

· _Transfiguration*_

· _Charms*_

· _History of Magic*_

· _Astronomy*_

· _Care of Magical Creatures_

· _Ancient Runes_

 _*Classes which are compulsory at Hogwarts School Of Witchcraft & Wizardry._

 _If you believe you will have some difficulty in any of these classes or if you require more information about your exams, please contact your head of house, who will be able to advise you further. This year you will meet with your head of house to discuss potential career prospects; this meeting will occur some time in October._

 _I am pleased to inform you that you have also been rewarded the honour of Slytherin House prefect. Please find enclosed your Prefect Badge, which you should fasten to your robes when you arrive at Kings Cross Station for the Hogwarts Express: your prefect duties will be outlined to you in the prefects car on the Hogwarts Express. We are certain you will perform your duties with pride, and will take the responsivities incumbent seriously. Congratulations, Mr Potter!_

 _Yours,_

 _Minerva McGonagall  
Deputy Headmistress of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft & Wizardry_

Staring down at the page, Harry smiles slightly, and he takes up the silver badge from the envelope. The black **P** isn't so big, and out of curiosity he fastens the badge to the front of his light robes, looking at his reflection in the window and looking at the way the polished badge reflects the light.

Hogwarts Prefect, _him_.

Harry turns over the page, quickly scanning the supplies list: he has everything he needs to hand. The Potions supplies aren't altered any, and there's been no change at all in the equipment needed for Astronomy or Herbology – apparently, at N.E.W.T. level one needs to purchase some more specialized equipment, but at O.W.L. level, the previous equipment is sufficient.

"Harry," Remus asks, appearing in the open doorway, and Harry glances back from his desk. He watches Remus' gaze flit over the pile of post on his desk before returning to Harry's face. "What time would you like to…?" The question is posed very cautiously, as if he's worried Harry's going to take several hours, and Harry's lip twitches.

"I'm actually finished, Remus. None of this needs replying to until later this evening. Let me just grab my shoes." Remus sags in relief, and Harry stands up from his writing desk, leaving his Hogwarts letter on the wooden surface. Remus stops short, however, staring at the badge on Harry's robes, his eyes wide.

"You didn't," he says, excitedly.

"Yeah," Harry murmurs, and Remus lopes suddenly forwards, throwing his arms around Harry and hugging him tightly, and Harry laughs into Remus' chest as he lets the man pull him close.

"That's great! Congratulations, I'm so _proud_ of you— Sirius! Sirius!"

"What?"

"Come here!"

"I'm eating toast!" comes the yell from down the corridor, and Remus rolls his eyes.

"Fuck your bloody toast!" he snaps back, and Harry laughs, leaning into Remus' side as Sirius comes into the room, his robe front mottled with crumbs and his expression confused. "Look! Notice anything different?" Sirius looks between Harry and Remus very slowly, his brows furrowed over his deep-set, handsome eyes.

"Well, he's not any talle—" Sirius' eyes land on the badge, and he _howls_. "You bastard! He's a traitor, Moony, a traitor!" Despite the language he's using, Sirius looks anything but displeased, and he runs up and throws his arms around both Harry _and_ Remus. Harry feels red blood flush through his cheeks, embarrassed at how enthusiastic the both of them are, and yet he just can't keep the wide grin from his face.

"Prefect Potter," Remus says delightedly, patting Harry on the back.

"Prefect Potter," Sirius echoes delightedly, patting himself on the chest and wiping away the crumbs. "What a weasel you are. Were you expecting it?"

"No," Harry says. "No, not at all. I feel really good about it, though."

Once Harry has his shoes on, the three of them Floo over to Grimmauld Place, and Harry waves off Sirius and Remus as they split off into Sirius and Narcissa's office. It's been a few days since Harry's trip to Hogwarts with the headmaster, and he can't help but feel a little strange about it. Remus has calmed down extensively, and no longer seems ready to run off with the werewolf cabal… Harry truly feels as if he's been taken seriously, like an adult, and he wonders if it's strange that it's such a surprise to him.

Harry thinks of Adrian King, and for a moment, his good mood fades away.

"Is that a badge I see on your chest, Mr Potter?" comes a crow from the top of the stairs, and Harry looks up, meeting Draco's eyes. There's no anger in Draco's voice at all, but a low triumph, and Harry grins up at him.

"There is indeed, Mr Malfoy," Harry calls back, and Draco stands up straight on the landing of the stairs, giving Harry an exaggerated salute before sliding down the bannister with a surprising grace, landing on his feet at the base of the stairs.

"Well done, Harry," Draco says. "I wondered who it would be – a toss-up between you and Theo, I thought."

"Do you think he'll be upset?"

"No," Draco assures him, shaking his head as they walk together into the dining room. "He might not be able to take points off anybody, but people treat him like a prefect with or without the badge." Harry chuckles, and he looks around the dining room as they enter. Hermione is sat at the dining room table, her nose buried in a heavy, leather-bound book, and Ginny and Ron Weasley are engaged in a game of chess.

"Is Mrs Weasley here?" Harry asks, and Ginny glances up from the game.

"No, her and Dad are both in the Ministry today, so she asked us to stay here – the twins are about somewhere. Mum's at a job interview." Hermione abruptly looks up from her book, her lips parting as she leans forwards.

"A job interview? I didn't realize that!"

"She's applying for the Magical Law Enforcement office," Ron says, his tone very serious. "She says she's been feeling the empty nest now that the last of us is at Hogwarts and that she wanted to keep busy, but it's all to do with the war, it seems like."

"So what, your mother's going to be an Auror?" Draco asks, arching an eyebrow. Harry keeps an eye on him, wondering what offensive thing he's about to say next, but Draco just finishes, "Isn't she a bit old? I thought Auror applicants had to be under the age of thirty five."

"She isn't applying to be an Auror, you prat," Ginny says, shaking her head and giving Draco a dirty look. "She's applying to work in their office as an investigator. She has to go through files, talk with victims, take statements, stuff like that."

"So your mum is going to help the war effort by becoming a secretary?" Draco asks.

"What are _you_ doing, Draco?" Hermione asks archly. "Going to take on You-Know-Who himself?" Harry sniggers.

"Shut up, Granger," is the muttered reply as Draco walks away and into the kitchen, and Harry looks between Ron and Hermione, letting his grin show as he looks between the silver shining badges pinned on Ron's thick, red jumper, and on Hermione's black cardigan.

"So," Harry says mildly. "You're my _colleagues_ , then?" Hermione gasps, and abruptly throws herself from her chair, all of her weight landing on Harry's shoulders as she wraps herself around his neck, and Harry laughs, lifting her off the ground a little and swinging her around.

"Oh, Harry, that's so brilliant! I'm so _glad_ – isn't this great, Ron? Harry's a prefect too!"

"Yeah," Ron says, not entirely convincingly, as Harry drops Hermione back onto the ground. Neither Ginny nor Ron look especially pleased about the situation, and in the back of his mind Harry feels the slightest bit of confusion. Ginny is giving Hermione a look that borders on jealousy, but why, Harry has _no_ idea. And Ron?

Well. Ron seems positively foul-tempered.

"How are you?" Harry asks as he sits at the table beside Hermione, and Hermione lets out a low, half-breathed laugh, waving her hand at the stack of books. None of them are on the syllabus, of course, but obviously Hermione feels they need to be read, and Harry chuckles as he sits down beside her. "How are your parents?"

"Oh, settling in, settling in. The Kiwi government was actually really nice about it, honestly – I spoke with their Minister for Magic, actually. I couldn't believe it, I mean, I _wrote_ her, but to actually meet with me and my parents!" As she speaks, Hermione's gaze is distant, as if she's still blown away by it, and Harry's smile is soft and fond. "They've been given a visa for three years… I mean, they've wanted to move to New Zealand for a long time, you know? They were always thinking they might move out there after I finished school, and they were so worried about leaving me alone in the UK, and Ron just said to my dad, "Well, is she a witch, or isn't she?", and pointed out that going to New Zealand is as easy for breathing for us, I mean, there's no worry about flights or anything!"

Harry looks to Ron, who has a small smile on his face as he looks down at the chess board between himself and Ginny: Ron, it seems, is winning by a landslide, and Ginny looks very irritable about the fact indeed, especially now that Harry is actually watching the game, and she has an audience to lose in front of.

"It wasn't much," Ron mutters. "But it's better they move out while they still can, before a lot more people do. Dad said that during the First War hundreds and hundreds of people left Britain, and our censuses are still feeling the loss."

"It won't get that bad again," Hermione says. She doesn't make eye contact with any of them, keeping her gaze on her books, and her voice shakes slightly. "It can't get that bad again. The First War lasted eleven _years_." Harry reaches out, gently puts his hand over hers, just for a second.

"You're right," Harry murmurs. He thinks of Stan Shunpike on the bridge, and Canton Nott with his brains dashed on the pavement, and of Evan Rosier strung up by Gilderoy Lockhart. He thinks of a war that lasts eleven years, long enough for a whole set of new children to come through their entire Hogwarts career, and he presses his lips together. "It won't get that bad again, Hermione."

"Have you noticed," Ginny starts, her tone slightly shrill, as if suddenly struck with desperation, "that we've always called it the First War? Even in textbooks, it was always the First War, even though everybody thought that they _knew_ You-Know-Who was dead. The _First_ War. Like we always knew there'd be a second one."

"Even World War I used to be the Great War," Hermione murmurs. "Until the second one started, anyway." There's a tension in the room, settling on each of their shoulders like a heavy blanket, and Harry wants to stand up and say, _No, no, we're not going to think about this anymore, we're not going to talk about this! All of you are too young to have to worry about this!_

Instead, he says, "This was always coming. Everybody knew it, everyone. Even those who believed Voldemort was really dead – they knew it would come from somewhere. But it won't be the same. This _war_ , if it becomes that… It'll be short, and bloody, but it will end with as little hardship as possible."

"How do you know?" says Ron. It's not said with any especial hostility or anger, or as if he's challenging Harry, but with genuine _askance_ in his voice and painted on his face.

"I don't know," Harry replies. "But we need goals." The door opens, and Cecilia walks past the four of them, moving into the kitchen. She returns a few moments later with a teapot and a cup, sitting at the table beside Ron, and she looks between the four of them, a little smile on her face.

"How are you four this morning?" They each respond, offering quiet, muted responses, and Cecilia chuckles into her mug.

"God, you lot are dour. Cheer up, ye'll be back at Hogwarts soon, so."

"What are you teaching us first this year, Celia?" Harry asks, and Cecilia glances up from her tea, apparently surprised. Her eyes move between each of their four faces, as if looking for some sign of a joke.

"Oh, well, I'm not, lad. Did nobody tell you? I've accepted a position at Scoil Eala Dubh in Kerry, I'm not teaching at Hogwarts this year."

"What?" Ron asks, turning his head and staring at her. "You're leaving? Why?"

"Circumstances demanded it," Celia says vaguely, waving her hand.

"Don't they speak Irish at Scoil Eala Dubh?" Ginny says, arching an eybrow, and Celia lets out a short laugh.

"This accent isn't for _show_ , you know, I'm from Cork."

"I thought people didn't speak Irish in most places," Hermione says, leaning forwards, and Cecilia shakes her head.

"Irish magicals all speak Irish," Celia replies, shaking her head slightly. This is a good distraction from the conversation they'd been having, so Harry leans forwards, showing as much interest as the others, despite feeling, he suspects, a little less. "It's not a boarding school, anyway. I teach every day from nine until six, and then go home. Monday to Friday, with a half-day of teaching on Saturdays."

"And you only teach in Irish?" Ron asks. "That's mad."

"English isn't banned or anything," Celia murmurs, seemingly amused. "But it's a foreign language, like French. The Irish magical community is completely separate from the Muggle community, so Irish always stayed as the dominant tongue. You'll find the same in some small Welsh or Breton communities."

"We'll miss you," Hermione says, and Cecilia beams at her, looking at Hermione with fondness on her face. Hermione adores Celia, Harry knows, and it's nice to see the two of them get on so well – they have a lot in common, he guesses. Both Muggleborn, both _massive_ bookworms… Both with dark-haired best friends who have a proclivity for trouble.

"Lindon and I won't be far off," Celia says, her lips still quirked up into a smile. "We're renting a farm outside of Hogsmeade – nothing big, just a little homestead and some land."

"A _farm_?" Ron asks, and sniggers. "What would a man like Sartorius know about living on a farm?"

"He doesn't know the front end of a duck from the arse end of a chicken," Ginny agrees, and the two of them descend into laughter.

"Yes, well," Celia agrees. "That's all true. Thankfully, we're not working the land."

"Do you know who we've got for Defence Against the Dark Arts, Celia?" Harry asks, willing to change the subject to something other than Lindon Sartorius' shortcomings, and Cecilia drums her painted nails upon the table, humming.

"Yeah, it came up last night – I was talking to Minerva McGonagall last night when I was on patrol in Hogsmeade. Professor Dumbledore told all the staff yesterday – except Snape, of course, he's in Dusseldorf 'til tonight – and it's a man called Gideon Gibbon."

"What do you make of him?" Cecilia opens her mouth, and then freezes, considering the question. It's like she tastes her own answer on her tongue, and chooses to rethink it. Settling her cup slowly down on the table beside her, she says in a very measured tone, "He worked for a long time in the Office For The Removal of Jinxes, Hexes and Curses." She pauses.

"Go on," Harry says. Ginny and Ron have all but abandoned their game now, looking between Celia and Harry with rapt expressions. Celia meets Harry's gaze, and Harry adds, "There's something there, something you think is a problem."

"He's not a very nice man," Celia murmurs. "Lindon could tell you more."

"He's not here, though," Harry points out. The door to the kitchen opens, and this time, with the door left ajar for some long moments, the scent of something baking comes through and into the dining room. It's a sweet, spicy note upon the air, heavy and pleasantly cloying, and although Draco is delicately drying his pale hands on a clean cloth, there are one or two dots of some pale mixture on his rolled-up sleeves. Around his neck and tied tightly at his waist is his father's pressed black apron: it fits him better than Harry would ever have guessed.

Cecilia's hands move slowly to her mug, cupping it between her hands: Harry watches as she swirls it three times, and then sets it upside-down on a coaster to drain. Cecilia Hayworth, reading tea leaves?

Harry would never have guessed it.

"Mr Gibbon believes very strongly in blood purity. He started at Hogwarts in the latter half of the war, and I think the ideology very much crystalized in his head – he believes quite firmly in a complete separation of magical people and mundane ones."

"Lots of people are blood purists, Celia. What's different about him?" It's strange, to see Celia so reluctant to talk openly about something: she's usually so open to talking about anything at all, and Harry wonders if he's doing the right thing by teasing the answer out of her. Celia exhales.

"Gideon Gibbon, as well as believing in the crucial importance of blood purity, is very keen on the traditional family unit. A mother, a father, and a child – several children, if possible, although for the best raising one should have no more than four. Mr Gibbon believes that although Muggleborns are the greatest threat to wizarding society, being as they are _outsiders_ , the greatest threat from within are those who are _homogenital_. Homogenital progenitors, according to Mr Gibbon, should be treated in St Mungo's for their condition; these people create a rift within the family unit, and if allowed to progress unimpeded, will destroy family life as we know it. Those who do not respond to treatment should be put to death, for society's sake as much as their own."

"Put to death?" Hermione repeats. "You can't be serious. He thinks we should _kill_ people for being gay?"

"Only if they don't respond to treatment… What sort of treatment is that?" Harry asks. "Does that _exist_?"

"St Mungo's won't do it," Cecilia says. "Gibbon has put papers before the St Mungo's Board of Directors two or three times in the past decade, but has been rejected point-blank every single time. You have to go to fringe practitioners."

"How does it work?"

"One _healer_ got an Azkaban sentence," Celia says, and she spits the word "healer" as if it's a curse, despite retaining her quiet, unemotional tone, "He was killed in the Lockhart breakout. They were using the Cruciatus Curse."

"Right, I get it. Send your son to be Crucioed until he can't look at another man without flinching any more, let alone think about being in bed with him."

"Harry!" Ron says. "Steady on, mate. You don't need to be so _graphic_ about it. Still, though, death… That's a bit bloody harsh, innit?"

"It's not a common belief," Draco says. He's still on the other side of the room, ridiculously far away and hovering beside the kitchen door, as if scared to come further inside. "Most blood purists merely believe such proclivities should be kept private: execution or torture are far outside the realm of normal belief."

"It's horrible," Ginny says, shaking her head. "I mean— Not that it should be a big public thing or anything – that sort of thing is for the bedroom, it's private, but to _kill_ somebody?" _That sort of thing is for the bedroom_ , Harry repeats in his mind. _It's private_. He looks to Ron, hears in his head again, _You don't have to be so graphic about it._

"Why does it have to be about sex?" Harry asks. "You don't think a man could _love_ another man?" Ginny stares at him, blinking owlishly. Ron looks uncomfortable at the very question.

"Well, that's not— that's not how it works, mate," Ron says. "Love, marriage, they happen between a man and a woman, like. There's two halves of a whole there – it's like a fetish, it's all sex, like. You couldn't have a real _relationship_ , could you?"

"Couldn't you?" Harry echoes, half-distracted. The kitchen door clicks as Draco disappears into the other room once more. "Was he a Death Eater?"

"He was too young," Celia says. "I don't think he ever joined the Death Eaters."

"What about now? Do you think he's a Death Eater now?"

"I— I don't know." She doesn't know. Harry believes that. The doors open, and Lindon immediately throws himself on top of Cecilia, the first of the small group of Order members to come into the room. They'd been on patrol in Hogsmeade, and have just been relieved, but they need to feedback before going about their days.

Gideon Gibbon… Perhaps he _is_ a Death Eater, now. Harry doesn't know who he would ask to discover whether he is or is not.

**ϟ** **~ THE LERNAEAN HYDRA ~** **ϟ**

"Are you absolutely _insane_?" Severus hisses, and he slams his travelling cloak down on one of the plush chairs Albus keeps for visitors in his office, pacing the floor distractedly. Of _course_ Albus had chosen to make this absolutely ass-minded decision while Severus was in Dusseldorf, attempting to procure some sort of security for the Order in Germany, and he would _dare_ —

"So I am told," Albus says softly. Severus had not even been _told_ , had not even been given a note: he had merely met Gibbon in the entrance hall, having just Flooed in.

"I'm not joking, Albus!" Severus snaps, feeling the rage burning in his throat and in his belly as he whirls on the old man. He's almost _yelling_ , he can hear himself – it has been decades since Severus has lost his temper like this, since he has truly raised his voice. "This isn't something you can sweep off with your charm and ageing dignity! How could you? How could you be so _stupid_?"

"If you have quite finished bandying insults in my direction, Severus—"

"No, _no_ , Albus, I have _not_ finished!" his voice cracks in the middle, so loud and desperate are his words, and he feels his fingers run through his hair. "I don't— I simply do not understand, Albus, how you could risk the children in this way. Quirrell was one thing, for he had no desire to harm children, but _Gibbon_ , Albus, he—" Severus' steam is leaving him: instead of anger, he feels abruptly powerless, and obscenely fatigued. Very slowly, he sinks into the chair across from Albus' desk, his body turned away from the old man and leaned against the arm of the seat. "Albus," Severus whispers. "He _murders_ chi— He… The things he believes in, the extent of his cruelty, you might as well have hired—"

So many thoughts are running through his mind he cannot give them voice, and Severus closes his mouth, closes his eyes, presses his face into his hands and lets out a long exhalation as he attempts to draw himself back under his own control. His racing ideas must be quelled, and he must reach _some_ sort of calm.

Severus does not know how many minutes it takes him, but when he looks up, Albus is watching him. His expression is carefully schooled into something resembling neutrality, but the bird, that bastard phoenix, is settled upon the arm of Albus' arm, and it only chooses to go to him when it feels Albus is in need of comfort. If it would not reveal an element of Severus' own careful analysis to the old man, Severus would openly scoff.

"Gideon Gibbon revels in seeking out and torturing Muggles, Albus. Children _especially_. He is an extremist in every sense of the word; even Lucius believed he ought be kept on a tight leash within the Ministry. And you would allow this man to teach the children of Hogwarts? What _possessed_ you to appoint him, Albus?" Severus feels humiliated, feels the extent of his vulnerability in every fibre of his being. He so hates to lose control before Albus, of all people, who so carefully takes note of such things, to be utilized at his leisure. He ought not have betrayed his emotions so clearly, ought not have come to the headmaster's office when he was so surprised, before he had controlled himself.

"When was Gibbon made a Death Eater, Severus?" Albus asks softly.

"Very soon after the Dark Lord's return to Britain," Severus says quietly. "Bartemius Crouch suggested him to the Inner Circle, and the Dark Lord delighted in the thought."

"So he has been a Death Eater for some time more than six months?"

"Yes," Severus answers.

"Is he well-viewed within Voldemort's Inner Circle?"

" _Stop it_ ," Severus says. It is a weakness of him, but he has already shown so much weakness tonight. "Albus, tell me why."

"There is a lot of pressure on you, my boy," Albus says, looking at Severus with his blue eyes shining with kindness, and yet Severus knows, _knows_ , that Albus feels as much revulsion for Severus as he does any Death Eater. "With Gibbon's presence here at Hogwarts, you will no longer be a unique target."

"But I am a target we can _control_. Albus, Gibbon roaming the castle—"

"He will be carefully observed, Severus," Albus murmurs. "We might feed riskier information to Lord Voldemort through Mr Gibbon, and protect you."

"I don't need _protection_ , Albus!" Severus snaps. "I will now be under greater scrutiny: not only will I have the worry that a child might write to his or her parent with some analysis of my behaviour that might displease the Dark Lord, but now there is a Death Eater beside me at breakfast, at dinner, a _true_ Death Eater."

"Lord Voldemort—"

" _Albus!"_ Severus hears the plaintive note in his voice, and he hates himself.

"—will trust you more now, Severus. That we should appoint Gibbon should be the truest test of the Death Eater anonymity: he will _know_ you have revealed nothing to us."

"Is this a punishment?" Severus asks. "Every year, you refuse me an appointment to position of Defence Against the Dark Arts, and you refuse me my resignation, and now even a _Death Eat—"_

 _"_ Severus," Albus says, his tone abruptly hard as steel, Severus has crossed a line in speaking so openly, and he shuts his mouth with a soft _click_ , turning his face away from Albus. The very thought of Gibbon being in the castle makes him feel sick to his stomach, but the thought of the man around the children…

He stands, taking up his travelling cloak.

"You won't do anything foolish, I hope," Albus murmurs.

"Spare me your hypocrisy," Severus retorts, and he sweeps from the room. He is not a good man. By no means would Severus ever convince himself he is a good man in any sense of the world: as a Death Eater, he tortured men and enjoyed it, tore to pieces those who made his life hard at Hogwarts, and imagined others with the faces of James Potter and Sirius Black. Severus had been feared even among some of the older Death Eaters for his ability in a torture chamber, and yet he had never preyed upon _children_.

Gibbon delights in such things, and to take him into the school…

The only reason for his work in Curses, Jinxes and Hexes is so he might enjoy the spread of their effect before he dispels the magic. He is a sadist of the highest order, a _monster_ , and he hasn't grown to regret, or change, as Severus did.

He is standing outside Severus' office.

"You were in such a rush when you passed me by!" Gibbon says, smiling warmly. He has rounded cheeks that make him look younger than he is, like some parody of a cherub. He proffers a bottle of Ogden's Firewhiskey in his left hand, and says, "The caretaker, Filch, directed me here. A Squib, is he?"

"Yes," Severus says, and allows Gibbon to follow him into his office, although every fibre of his being tells him to kill the man. Severus could. He killed Canton Nott not a month ago, and no one had ever suspected – an accident in the Hall of Staircases, perhaps. It has happened before: it will happen again.

But no. The timing would be far too suspicious.

"Tut tut," Gibbon says cheerfully as he enters, closing the door behind him. "Well, we have to do something with them, I suppose! Would hardly do to throw them among the Muggles, deficient as they are. Killing them, I often think, would be kinder."

Severus says nothing, but merely inclines his head as he opens a cupboard for glasses. He "rummages" for longer than he truly needs to, desperately avoiding eye contact with Gibbon's bright eyes, avoiding looking at his cherubic features and warm smile. Severus has tortured and killed, still _delights_ in it when he can turn his talents upon a fellow Death Eater, but he could never look so beatific as he did such things, never.

Gibbon scares him, Severus realizes. The thought hits him with all the force of a train.

"I beg your pardon?" Severus asks, realizing Gibbon is looking at him expectantly.

"Do you enjoy it? Being Head of House?" Gibbon repeats, still charming. _So_ charming.

"I do," Severus says. "To offer support to the _betters_ of our society is, of course, a great honour. In any of the other houses, of course, Mudbloods would be among our stock, but Slytherin House has no such trouble." A lie, a lie, a lie, _a lie_. Severus has more lies stored within him than he has buttons on his robes. He speaks smoothly, clawing back the control he had let slip with Dumbledore, and he gives Gibbon a sly half-smile. "What a delight it is to have a co-worker who knows the truth of the world."

Beaming, Gibbon begins pouring firewhiskey into each of their glasses, and when Severus drinks, he drinks more than he ought.


	116. Year Five: A Bad Omen

_He sits at a table, his thronelike chair high behind him, and he slowly looks about the room, unblinking. Malfoy Manor's main hall is dark, dimly lit only by the dying candles that rest upon the dining table, and although a fire flares in the hearth, it is silent, and he feels no heat from it._

 _To his right hand sits Hermione, her gaze blank as she stares forwards, and to his left sits Draco Malfoy. He looks down the length of the table, sees friend after friend and ally after ally seated in dining chairs. There are dozens at his table, and the hall seems to stretch on forever to accommodate them. Everyone sits in the same position, back straight, gaze forwards, hands spread flat on the mahogany table – everyone except Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy, for Narcissa's hand rests on top of Lucius'._

 _Lucius' eyes are sunken in, the skin sallow and wrinkled on his face, and Harry can see his skull plainly through the greying, shrunken flesh. On the table, there is a goblet, and Harry takes it, sipping from the red liquid within, and then he leans in, gently tilting Hermione's chin towards him and pressing his mouth to hers._

 _Wine (if wine it is) slips from his mouth to hers, and he feels her swallow. Satisfaction reigns: Harry steps on to Percy Weasley._

 _This is different._

 _He grabs hold of Percy by his curled red hair, pulls his head back hard, and Percy's gasping moan is stopped short when Harry crushes their mouths together; wine runs over Percy's teeth and tongue, but more drips down his lips, leaving him gasping under Harry's hand._

 _Blaise kisses Harry soundly; George doesn't spill a drop; the lips of Lindon Sartorius barely ghost over Harry's own, but they taste like peppermint and honey. Mouths meeting blend into a strange, mingled mix of memories, forceful or soft, biting or gentle, pleasant or painful. Harry's lips never meet those of Severus Snape's: their eyes meet over the table, and Harry feels the wine drain slowly from his mouth although he does not swallow. He stares, hypnotized, when Snape's Adam's apple bobs in his throat._

 _"_ _My lord," says a voice, and Harry turns his head. The goblet remains clasped in his left hand, and two hands rest slowly over Harry's own._

 _"_ _I'm not your lord," Harry says. His voice echoes. Draco's eyes shine._

 _"_ _May I?" Draco asks, his voice silky. Harry takes a slow sip of the goblet (it never empties, why does it never empty? Can all be infinite?), but it is Draco that closes the gap between them. His mouth presses to Harry's, and Harry gives him all the wine he has, but Draco's mouth remains on Harry's, his lips hot and urgent, his tongue licking its way into his mouth, and Harry gasps._

 _The goblet tumbles to the ground with a metallic clatter, and Draco kisses him ever harder, his hands around Harry's throat, his pale lips stained with wine._

 _"_ _Slake his thirst," begins the chant from the table, and Draco's mouth becomes rougher and rougher. He is drinking of Harry now, not of the wine, and the chant comes louder and louder, ringing in Harry's ears: "Slake his thirst! Slake his thirst!_ _ **Slake his thirst!**_ _"_

Harry wakes in a cold sweat, filthy and wet from his head to his toe, and he looks at the clock. Three minutes past five. Sighing, he pulls himself out of bed, opens the curtains, and looks outside. It's the very first day of autumn, but the sky is dark with thick, grey clouds, so dense that barely any sunshine comes through.

Harry frowns. There were no storms forecast for today, and yet…

Harry looks to his Hogwarts robes laid out over his desk, and his fully packed trunk. He needs to shower, needs to get dressed. He can think about his dreams later on.

**ϟ** **~ THE LERNAEAN HYDRA ~** **ϟ**

With a thunderclap, the black heavens open, and rain begins pouring down in heavy drops, splattering on Harry's shoulders and his hair as he takes hold of a first year's trunk and passes it up to Josiah Shaw, a burly Hufflepuff prefect in the sixth year. Anthony Goldstein then levitates it into the shelving unit put aside for the luggage.

"Let first years onto the train first, please!" Harry calls over the bustle of the station, and he is glad to step away from the platform and back under the roof of the station. "Smith, did you hear me?" Harry grabs Zachariah Smith by the back of the robes, pulling him back, and he makes a polite gesture to the three shy girls moving cautiously through the crowd. They each give him grateful smiles and uncertain glances to Smith, and hop up onto the train.

"Who died and put you in charge, Potter?" Smith asks, getting closer so that they're nose to nose, and Harry lets out a derisive sound.

"I did," Harry retorts, and he shoves Smith away. He wishes he could take points off already, but points can't be given or taken away until the hourglasses are primed during the opening speech of the year, according to the short manual of rules he'd received in the post a few days before. "Hey, hey. Are you alright?" He catches a desperate-looking girl by the shoulders: she has blonde hair that is feather-like around her head, and she is looking hurriedly from one side of the station to the other.

"My sister, I've lost my sister!" she says, bouncing on her heels. "I only stepped away for a second, and then she was gone, and I—"

"What's your sister's name?" Harry asks, cutting through before the little girl can work herself up any more.

"Daphne!" Keeping his hand gently on the girl's shoulder, Harry puts his wand to his throat and murmurs _Sonorus._ He puts on the most officious tone he can muster, deepening his voice a little, and straightening his back; despite her embarrassment, the little girl laughs.

"Can Daphne Greengrass please come to the lost and found? We are at the righthand side of the platform, below the green lamp. I repeat: can Daphne Greengrass please come—" Harry laughs as Daphne shoves him hard in the chest, and he watches as she grabs hold of her sister, pulling her close. Dispelling the charm, Harry says, "You must be Astoria."

"Hi," she says; although no longer panicked, she now seems positively shy, and her hand tremors as Harry shakes it.

"I'm Harry Potter," he says quietly. "I'm in the same year as your sister."

"More's the pity," Daphne says, but her lips quirk up at the sides, and she ducks her head to try to hide her smile. "Come on, Astoria. Would you like to sit with me and Tracey, or shall we go and find a first year carriage for you?"

"Uh—" Harry turns away, letting the Greengrass sisters step up onto the train, and he can't help but find himself a little amused. Daphne is such a severe girl, and seeing her become so tender around her sister is strange to him. And yet Harry can't shake the idea that if things were different, if the world wasn't on the very cusp of war, perhaps she might not be so tender. Perhaps Astoria Greengrass would not have been so upset or so lost or so very distressed.

Above them, there's another clash of thunder, and although most of the children moving through the station barely seem to notice, Harry sees a dozen adults, most of them parents, flinch and look around them, searching for an enemy which isn't there.

 _"_ _What does it say, Cecilia?" Harry had asked when they'd walked into the kitchen together; Celia had been moving with her head down, her gaze focused on the inside of her teacup._

 _"_ _Do you put much stock in divination, Harry?"_

 _"_ _I do if you do."_

 _"_ _There's a crown here. That's nobility, or success." Harry had caught a glimpse of the cup, and he had seen nothing but black blobs of tea leaves clinging to the sides of the ceramic._

 _"_ _For you?" he'd asked. She had shaken her head._

 _"_ _For you."_

 _"_ _What else?"_

 _"_ _Somebody's going to die. Somebody important."_

 _"_ _Important to whom?" Harry has asked. "To me?"_

 _"_ _You're asking the right questions," Cecilia had murmured, and she'd flicked on the tap, rinsing the mug under the stream of water. On the side, cooling down on a wire rack, were a series of neatly-made and dusted scones: Draco had worked at them carefully that afternoon, though Harry had already known they wouldn't be the same as his father's, much as Draco would try. "You should have taken Divination as a subject."_

 _"_ _I couldn't do that," Harry had murmured. "It'd drive me mad: I'd see omens everywhere."_

 _"_ _Yes," Celia had agreed immediately. "You probably would."_

"Mr Potter," says a voice behind him, and he turns, looking into the strong features of Billy O'Neill, the conductor of the Hogwarts Express. His uniform, bright red with golden trimmings to match the Express itself (it had been commissioned by a British alumnus some century before), gives him the air of a military sergeant, and yet the way he looks at Harry makes him feel _strange_ , as if he's looking to Harry for orders.

"Hi there, Mr O'Neill," Harry says, giving him a nod of his head, and when O'Neill presses an envelope into Harry's hand, subtly, Harry quickly tucks the page into his inside pocket. "How are you feeling?"

"Tense," O'Neill admits immediately. He stands straight beside Harry, his hands neatly behind his back, his chin high and his shoulders squared. Harry scans the platform as they stand together, unable to keep his gaze still, and O'Neill continues, "I don't remember a day like this in all my life, Mr Potter, and I've been the conductor of this train for near twenty-five years. The driver, Sam, in _forty_ years there's never been a day like this, and her da said he'd never had a day like it neither." People are looking at Harry as they pass him by, and Harry sees the mix of fear, uncertainty and admiration in their eyes, and he can only imagine what they're saying to each other about him and his ill-fated "duel" with Voldemort in Diagon Alley.

"It doesn't bode well," Harry murmurs. "But I don't want to freak anybody out, either: Aurors will be keeping an eye on the train's progress, so we'll be safe, I think."

"We've always had a beacon on the train, just in case. Sam's a first-rate wizard, of course, but you know…" _I'm a Squib_ , Harry finishes for him in his own head. O'Neill's name had come up at one or two meetings in Grimmauld Place, and while Harry hadn't shared his knowledge of O'Neill's leanings with Lockhart, he'd been passed over as someone to introduce to the Order of the Phoenix.

"I know," Harry says. "I'll see you, Mr O'Neill. Good luck."

"You too, Mr Potter. You stay safe, now." O'Neill begins to call over the crowd, his brogue carrying on the air and cutting through a lot of the English voices, louder and more powerful. _Definitely_ something like an army sergeant.

The prefect carriage isn't difficult to find. Harry sits down beside Tracey Davis, the other Slytherin prefect, and looks around the room: with twenty-four prefects in all, the prefects are awarded an entire carriage to themselves at the end of the train, with a long table they can each sit around.

The Head Girl – a beautiful Gryffindor girl with long tresses of flaming red hair – chairs the meeting, and it's obvious to Harry how very nervous she is, but the Head Boy keeps giving her encouraging nods as she speaks. They're given the password for the Prefect's Bathroom – _aloe vera_ – and given information about that year's weekly prefect meetings, which are to be held on Thursday evenings.

It's simple stuff, standard, and much of the meeting seems to be a rehash of the information in the prefect's manual, established verbally for the sake of clarity, and Harry loses a little interest, choosing to glance around the table and examine his fellow prefects. Ravenclaw have selected Cho Chang and Anthony Goldstein; Hufflepuff have Hannah Abbott and Ernie McMillan.

"And as for rounds, we'll establish a schedule this Thursday. New Prefects, we'd like you to do rounds of the castle for an hour in the earlier evening, just after common room curfew. We like to have at least two prefects on for each hour, but there's less pressure on you, as you're still getting the hang of it."

"Are we doing rounds on the train?" Harry asks.

Patricia Simpson, the Head Girl, blinks at him. "Um," she says, her cheeks flushing red, and she hesitates before saying, "Er, well, we usually leave that up to personal choice, you know."

"You don't think there's a more pressing need to keep an eye out this year?" Harry asks, his tone blunt. Patricia's gaze flits from his eyes up to the scar on his forehead, and Harry clenches his fist under the table.

"Um, ah, well, I— That is to say, I, um, I think—" The red flush slowly drains from Patricia's face, her flesh paling, and she sits heavily down in her seat. Harry turns his head to the side, exchanging a withering look with Tracey Davis, and then he stands up.

"Excuse me, then," he says, and he walks out into the corridor. He begins to move up and down the train, checking on individual carriages and speaking with people in each of the cars. There's a little anxiety among some of the older students, and Harry can see that many of them are stiff and uncertain, but the younger students seem a little less aware of what's going on.

"Hi, Harry! How're you?" Dennis Creevey asks excitedly, and Harry gives him a wan smile; he's been walking up and down the train for several hours now, and it's beginning to take its toll. Excitedly, Dennis bounces from his place on the carpet, and Harry looks between him and Beth Wei, who are heavily involved in a game of cards. Artemis Henderson and Ned Buttress are both fast asleep in the corner of the carriage, and another second year Harry doesn't recognize is watching the card game with a rapt expression.

"I'm great, Dennis. You guys okay in here?"

"Mmm," Beth Wei says, pushing her glasses further up her nose and looking up at Harry. "You look good. I heard you died."

"Yes, well, I got up again," Harry says. "Call for a prefect if you need anything." He slides the door closed. He stops in one of the connecting carriages, looking outside of the window. Water comes down the windows in thick, fat drops, and even though they're several hours of London now, a set of black clouds seems to track the Express through the English countryside.

"Have we reached Scotland yet?" comes a voice from behind him, and Harry glances back. Draco comes slowly to stand beside him, looking out of the window, and Harry shakes his head.

"We're nearly at the border," Harry answers, and Draco looks at him, examining him carefully. Harry thinks of the dream, thinks of Draco's mouth on his and Draco's hands around his throat, and most of all, thinks of the chant: _Slake his thirst. Slake his thirst_. "Are you alright?"

"Yes," Draco murmurs. "Apparently you made Patricia Simpson faint."

"Oh, I didn't _make_ her faint," Harry mutters, crossing his arms over his chest and trying to keep the scowl off his face. "She faints at the barest stimuli – Fred was saying she was fainting every day during her O.W.L.s. I don't know how she's supposed to be Head Girl if she loses consciousness at the first harsh word."

"You look tired."

"I didn't get much sleep," Harry admits. "I was up late, and then I had a nightmare. Was awake much earlier than I wanted to be."

"Come sit down for a bit. You need to eat something, Harry." Draco is looking at Harry with a lot of care, as if he's worried Harry might snap at him for daring to say so, but he's right, and Harry knows it. With a reluctant nod of his head, he follows Draco to the compartment he'd taken a while back: Theodore is reading a book in a script Harry doesn't recognize, and Blaise is looking studiously out of the window. Hermione is sat on the floor, reading her own book.

"Glad to see everybody's feeling cheery and chatty today," Harry says dryly, and when Theo silently presses a cauldron cake into Harry's hand, he sits down and begins to eat it. He looks at Blaise's finely chiselled features, but Blaise barely seems to notice Harry's there. "Sorry about the prefect thing, Theo. Were you surprised?"

"Not really," Theo says mildly, turning a page in the book – he's reading it, Harry realizes, from right to left. He supposes it's Hebrew. "I wrote a letter to Professor Snape in May, saying that if I was in considerations for the role of prefects, I would prefer to be removed from the list." Harry and Draco share a look, and then both chuckle.

Theo looks up, glancing between the two of them. "What?"

"Nothing," Draco says, amused. "Go back to your studying." Harry sits back, taking small bites of his cauldron cake, and when Hermione leans back against his knees, he relaxes a little more. Lightning flashes across the sky with such force that they all shift in their seats, but despite the storm outside, Harry is able to close his eyes for a few moments. Just a few moments – just to let him rest his eyes for a little while.

**ϟ** **~ THE LERNAEAN HYDRA ~** **ϟ**

"Something must be done," Severus says. The balcony they stand on is enchanted, and the rain that comes down from the grey skies is gently persuaded to change its direction, leaving them dry where they stand.

"We cannot move to do anything out of the ordinary," Albus says quietly. "We have placed a group of Order members in Hogsmeade, as well as having Aurors stationed outside the gates and some patrolling the road between the castle and the village. Severus, this is intended only to scare the children."

"And if anybody is killed tonight, Albus? Will _that_ scare the children?" Despite himself, he knows that Albus is right, and he looks out over the grounds. Mud runs in brown rivers down the hilly path that winds down to Hogwarts house, and the lake's surface is choppy and black. Severus and Gibbon had each been instructed to remain at Hogwarts that evening, so as to not arouse suspicion, but there will be an attack today… And yet, where?

In Hogsmeade? In Diagon Alley? In both?

"How are you getting on with Professor Gibbon?" Albus asks, in a delicate tone. Severus looks down at his own hands, which are rested on the balcony's edge wall. It had been Albus who had suggested Severus spend less time coming directly to his office, and yet here Severus feels much more exposed, despite the lacking visibility of the day, and the fact that Gibbon had left the castle to perform some "errands" in the village. It is barely one o'clock in the afternoon, and yet Severus could easily believe it was midnight, it is so very dark.

"He thinks of us as bosom friends, it would seem," Severus replies. Gibbon has come to his office twice merely to socialize, and it is to Gibbon's liking that they walk back to Hogwarts together on the occasions that they are summoned by the Dark Lord. Gibbon's cheer chills Severus to his very bones, and the casual way he views their summons worries him for more reasons than one. "Just this morning, as we returned form the Dark Lord, he was denigrating Maxie Caine to me."

There is a pause. Severus takes the smallest amount of petty satisfaction in it.

"Oh?" Albus says.

"Yes, yes," Severus says, turning his head. "According to _Professor_ Gibbon, Albus, Maxie Caine is an enemy among us. Being as he is, of course, a _homosexual."_ Albus' mouth tightens slightly, and Severus returns Albus' discomfort with a savage smile, showing his yellowed teeth. "Oh, yes. Would you like to know what he said to me? He said, _Severus, these deviants are becoming bolder in recent years: they must be stopped. One propositioned me, in the very middle of Red Stockings, on Fargo Alley! I say, Severus, what_ would _you do? If one of these disgusting little creatures offered you his member?_ "

"And what did you say?" Severus gives a shrug. He feels uncomfortable in his own skin, wearing this papery disguise to go unnoticed among the Death Eaters, as if he belongs there. He is nothing Gideon Gibbon could admire: he is a Half-Blood, is he not? And an Irishman, and a _homogenital_. Stupid word, created by men who know little of the English language.

"I said, "Oh, I don't know, Gideon. Put it in my mouth?" Severus bites out.

" _Severus_ ," Albus scolds, but there is no shock in his voice: he knows better than to show shock when Severus is frustrated. "Do not be so crass."

"I didn't say anything," Severus murmurs, looking out over the grounds. Hagrid is holding a lantern high above his head, barking orders to the reluctant herd of Thestrals to come for their dinner. Through the mist of rain, he is but a brown blob far beneath them, and Severus cannot make out the majority of his words before they are swept away by the wind. "I changed the subject. He thinks Caine is a corrupting influence, that he encourages steadfast Pureblood men to lose their sense."

"Caine is bedding the other Death Eaters?"

" _Bedding_ implies he's taking something of an active role," Severus murmurs. "Bartemius has taken a shining to Caine, and Caine would hardly be in a position to refuse if he wished to."

" _Does_ he wish to?" Albus asks, but what does it matter? Caine can't be saved: Severus knows that. He always did. "Perhaps you ought take the boy under your own wing."

"What?" Severus turns his head, staring at the old man, but Albus is intentionally looking out over the grounds, so that he need not meet Severus' searching eyes. "My apologies, Albus, it did not occur to me that the best way to keep young Caine from the _abuses_ of my fellows might be to abuse him myself!"

"I was hardly suggesting—"

"I know _exactly_ what you were suggesting," Severus hisses. "You think I might soften myself, is that it? Show some vulnerability, allow myself to be romanced? Caine is a _child_ , and you would have me charm him into my bed."

"For the boy's sake, Severus, if not your own."

"Don't make this about sacrifice." What is it that runs through that old man's head? Severus' skin _crawls_ at the very thought of Caine turning his lovestruck gaze on Severus himself, at the idea of acting possessively with the other Death Eaters – an act certain to end in his own demise, as the Dark Lord makes it _perfectly_ clear who Caine belongs to.

"Severus," Albus says quietly. He is standing before Severus all of a sudden, and he places his hands upon Severus' shoulders, very gently. Severus feels hemmed in by the sudden touch, and he stiffens, but he does not pull away. "I did not mean to insult you. You are trying your best, my boy, and I cannot fault you for that. I was referring to your educating the boy, Severus, not mounting a seduction of him."

Severus feels shame mount within him, and much to his chagrin, he feels a flush of slight blood come into his cheeks, tinging the white skin red.

"You are too sensitive, I think, to Gibbon's prejudices," says Albus softly, and when he draws his hands away, Severus is torn between relief and a wish that the contact would continue. "Just because he thinks you a monster doesn't mean you are one."

"I am one," Severus retorts, without any real malice in his tone. "I must prepare for the Slytherins." He sweeps from the balcony and into the castle, making his way quickly down toward the dungeons: he can be grateful, at least, that Gibbon seems to lack any real knowledge of many of the shortcuts within the castle's walls, and is so many floors above his head.

And tonight…

Severus only wishes he knew what would happen tonight.


	117. Year Five: Error And Trial

"Harry," says a soft voice. Harry tries to lean away from it, wants to stay in his bed, but the voice has a hand, and the hand is _cold_ , and it is patting him on the cheek. He lets out a soft grumble of sound, trying to push the hand away, but the hand becomes more insistent, pressing harder against his skin. " _Harry_."

Harry blinks open his eyes, and he looks into the eyes of Blaise Zabini. Blaise is very close to him, his dark eyes full of worry, and Harry realizes with a sinking sensation that his own hands are clasped around Blaise's wrists.

"We're coming into the village, Harry," Blaise murmurs. "You need to wake up." Harry glances around the compartment, which is empty of anybody else, and he sees that all of Theo and Hermione's books are gone, likely having been packed away into their trunks.

"Oh," Harry murmurs. "Sorry." Blaise gives an inclination of his head and then draws away: Harry feels a distinct urge to grab at his wrists and keep him close, pull him closer, even, but he doesn't. He just stands, taking his cloak out of his trunk and pulling it on over his head. The cloak had been a gift from Augusta Longbottom that year, and Harry knows it will soon become his favourite garment: the cloak is made of a shimmering silver wool with black trimmings, and it is enchanted with a warming charm and another for impermeability. Rain doesn't so much as _splash_ the thing. Buckling the cloak at his neck and drawing the hood over his head and looking at his reflection in the train window.

He looks ready. He feels himself stiff in front of the makeshift mirror, feels the tension he'd forgotten in sleep flood back to his form. He remembers Cecilia's prediction, and the dream he'd had last night, and he thinks about the storm above their heads, still pounding on the roof of the train.

Harry sets his jaw, and makes his way off the train.

**ϟ** **~ THE LERNAEAN HYDRA ~** **ϟ**

"First years, follow Mr Hagrid, please!" Harry calls over the pounding rain and gently nudging the youngest children in the direction of Hagrid's huge, towering form. Hagrid shoots him a smile that Harry can barely see through the mist of the rain, and Harry returns it. "Don't wander off, guys! Stick with your prefects and get into the carriages as soon as you can!" Harry flicks his wand into his hand, and he throws a few lantern charms into the air. They hover above the students and lead a simple path toward the carriages, easier to follow in the dark, impenetrable grey of the lashing storm.

"Who died and put you in charge, Potter?" comes the voice of Zachariah Smith, and Harry shoves the other boy away from him.

"I did! Get the Hell away from me, Smith, and be glad I can't dock points yet!" There's a rumble of thunder above their heads, and a few of the children, mostly second years, wince and let out noises of shock. Smith disappears into the dark, and Harry looks to the kids.

"Don't worry, it's just the storm," Harry calls to them. "Off you go, into the carriages. You guys stick together!"

It's slow-going. As well as the rain, there's a thick fog in the air, and it's difficult to see a few feet in front of one's face – every now and then, Harry hears one student colliding with another, followed by sounds of pain and apology. When everyone is off the train, Harry hops on, doing a quick scan of each of the carriages, and he picks up a forgotten Hufflepuff scarf and a copy of Miranda Goshawk's Book of Spells, Grade III, but nothing else, thankfully, and no students. The Hufflepuff scarf, he notes with a grim satisfaction, is labelled, "Z. Smith."

He releases Hedwig from her cage, allowing her to settle on Harry's shoulder (taking advantage of the charm on his cloak, apparently), and he sets his trunk to levitate behind him.

"Professor Flitwick," Harry says as he steps off the train. He can barely see the old man through the haze of fog, and then there's a sudden burst of visibility.

"There you are, Potter. You're the last of the prefects. You can just catch the last carriage there."

"No, I thought I'd walk up behind the carriages with one of the staff, sir. Picked up some lost things from the train." The old man smiles at him, looking a little surprised.

"Ah, top thinking!" Flitwick says, and he takes the scarf and book both from Harry's hands, enchanting them smaller and slipping them into his coat pocket. As they begin to walk, the very last of the carriages starts off ahead of them. "Have you seen a thestral before, Potter?" Flitwick had noticed, it seems, how Harry's gaze had focused on the strange, skeletal beasts that tow the carriages, and he slowly shakes his head.

"I've seen sketches," he says. "Luna speaks pretty highly of them – uh, Luna L—"

"I know Miss Lovegood very well," Flitwick says, a touch regretfully, and he glances back over the village as a flash of lightning illuminates the sky. It isn't grey, Harry realizes in the sudden burst of light, but a deep purple, like a burn salve reducing in a cauldron. "Feeling the chill?"

"Not so much," Harry says. "I got this cloak for my birthday, and it's helping. Plus the owl, of course." Hedwig nips at Harry's temple, and he chuckles, reaching up to stroke the side of her neck. Even as he walks alongside Flitwick, however, he cannot shake the tension coiled within him, and the knowledge, the certain knowledge, that something is _just_ about to happen.

"Ah, the owl: truly an excellent scarf for the ages." Flitwick smiles, glancing around them. "I admit, Potter, I didn't expect to have you as a prefect."

"You expected Theo Nott?" Harry asks, and Flitwick coughs delicately, hiding the sound behind his hand. Harry laughs. "Yeah, he expected it too, apparently – wrote Professor Snape to say he'd like to be removed from considerations, _if_ he was on the list." Flitwick's laugh is soft and low, and although his voice is quite high and positively squeaky, his laugh is a rumbling sound that seems to come from deep within his throat. A silence spans between them for a few long moments, until something snaps between them: as one, Flitwick and Harry whirl on their feet, their wands raised.

The fox, soaked through from the rain, stares at them, horror struck, before shooting off the path and into the woods.

"Nervous, Potter?"

"No more than you, Professor." Harry stares down into Flitwick's eyes for a few seconds: the two of them share a stance, both with squared shoulders and their wands ready at their sides. As the two of them turn back to the castle, continuing the climb up to the gates. "I was _sure_ something was going to happen. I felt it in my bones – the rain, the tension in the air."

"I'm not ashamed to tell you, Potter, I felt exactly the same." Flitwick sighs, shaking his head slightly. The gates open to let Harry and Flitwick in, and then close behind them with a _clunk_ of iron on iron. "Sometimes in times of war, our instincts are wrong. We get worked up over things that aren't there, we see clues where there aren't any. I'm one hundred and twelve years old, Potter, and I still get these things wrong."

"It's not that I _wanted_ something to happen," Harry murmurs. "But I can still feel the tension in my chest, you know? Like I've been winding up a spinning top and then put it back in a drawer."

"An astonishingly apt analogy," Flitwick says, and he glances up at Harry. "What are you thinking you'll do when you leave Hogwarts?"

"Uh," Harry says, the question taking him by surprise. Hedwig shifts upon his shoulder, leaning the pleasant heat of her body against the side of his ear. "Well, I hadn't given it too much thought. I know a snake sanctuary that'd be glad to hire me, and I— well, I think Mr Ollivander _implied_ he'd offer me an apprenticeship once, but I'm not sure."

"Oh, don't listen to Garrick," Flitwick says dismissively, waving his hand. "Nobody understands a word he says: he's been that way since school. Listen, Potter, perhaps you should consider a career in writing."

"Writing?" Harry repeats.

" _Yes_ , yes. You write a lot of letters, don't you? There's a positive tornado around you at breakfast every morning – you can't write that many letters without having a little panache to your style. You could write for the _Prophet_ , of course, but you could be a novelist, a poet, perhaps even a biographer." On one level, Harry is aware that Flitwick has changed the subject to distract him, but on another, there's a deep warmth in his chest, a bubble of gratitude. He has never considered that writing may be an actual career path before, and the thought strikes him with all the suddenness of a bolt of lightning. Remus writes children's stories – Harry could do that, couldn't he? _Write_?

"Thank you, Professor Flitwick," Harry says, very genuinely. The carriages are beginning to stop now, and let the students out. They each run quickly into the courtyard, many of them holding their cloaks above their heads to keep from getting wet. Harry lingers with Flitwick, unpacking the trunks from the backs of the carriages and setting them aside in a neat pile beneath the eaves of one of the maintenance sheds, where the worst of the rain is kept from them. Hedwig flies off toward the owlery amidst a cloud of other owls (she'd probably been waiting for that), and when they're finally done, Harry and Flitwick stop in the courtyard. Through the open doors of the entrance hall, he can see the new first years gathered, waiting to go into the Great Hall for their sorting. Looking at them – there are around forty in all, Harry realizes with astonishment, nearly double the number of students in his own year – Harry cannot help a sense of vague pride in his chest. Perhaps it's silly of him, but the idea he may be looking at some of the new Slytherins for the year delights him.

"We'll go in with them," Flitwick murmurs, leading the way into the courtyard. "That way we won't disrupt the proceedings or distract at all."

"Makes sense," Harry says. "Thanks, Professor Flitwick, for letting me help tonight. I guess I needed some way to—" There's a rumble on the air, much more powerful than thunder, and it shakes the very floor they're standing on: a few loose tiles come down from the castle roof, shattering on the ground around them, and in the entrance hall the first years all tighten together, letting out yells and screams of shock as the very floor shakes below them.

Harry turns and stares down the hill, where the soft lights of the village are usually visible in the distance. Even through the fog, Harry can see no soft lights: smoke is billowing up and into the sky, and the flames are very high.

Hogsmeade is burning.

"Professor Flitwick," Harry says, but Flitwick is already moving.

"First Years, into the Great Hall!" Flitwick orders, and Harry follows after him, ushering the children into the next room as Flitwick throws open the doors and makes his way inside. "We need wands in the village, now! Staff, to our even split! _Students, stay seated!_ " Nobody disobeys, but it occurs to Harry that they may not be able to.

"I need another table," Harry mutters under his breath, and with a _pop_ , two stone tables appear in the space between the long tables and the front wall, with twenty or so spaces on each. Sometimes, Harry thinks slightly deliriously, he _loves_ magic more than he can say. "First Years, sit down!" he says, splitting the children off onto each side.

The staff mobilize in a way Harry is astonished by: while Albus, McGonagall and Snape stand neatly behind the table, the rest of the staff seem to split in a way that's almost choreographed. Delaney, Sinistra, Burbage and Babbling all come away from the staff table, walking in a march toward Flitwick: Vector, Sprout, Hagrid and Pomfrey all stay seated, although they each look stiff.

"Hogsmeade is under attack," calls Albus' voice over the babble of the students, and everybody goes silent as Flitwick and his staff move into the entrance hall. "To keep everybody safe, we will remain here in the Great Hall." Harry sees Snape murmur something to McGonagall, and immediately she transforms into a cat midleap, streaking from the hall at such a speed Harry would never have _guessed_ it was her.

"What if we want to stand and fight, Professor Dumbledore?" Harry looks to Cedric Diggory, who has stood up at the table. "I'm seventeen, sir. I've the right."

"You do, Mr Diggory," Albus says, the sound of his voice ringing in the room. He flicks his hand, and then says, "Those of you who are of age, it is your right to go down to the village if you so choose. Those of you who _are not_ , the castle will know. Do not try to leave your tables." Sure enough, the younger students can't move: Harry can see Ernie Macmillan doing his best to fight the magic keeping him tethered to the Hufflepuff table.

Twenty or so students stand up from each of the tables – mostly Gryffindors and Hufflepuffs, severa; Ravenclaws, and two seventh year Slytherins: Rebekah Amstell and Abraham Hamish, holding hands as they stand from the table, with matching prefect badges upon the robes.

Harry slips from the hall.

He takes a corridor to the left – it leads to a passageway out onto the grounds, closer to the gates – and he feels a hand tight on the back of his robes, flinging him against a wall. Snape is not a tall man, but in this moment Harry feels Snape _towers_ over him, and he squares his shoulders, looking defiant.

"The castle didn't stop me," Harry says immediately. "You can't—"

"The castle didn't stop you because you weren't sat _down_ ," Snape growls.

"You can't stop me from going!"

"I believe you will find that I _can_."

"But you _can't_ , sir, I need to be down there, I need to—"

"You need to be safe. You could be killed, Potter, do you—"

"I've already been killed! What does it matter?"

"Potter!"

"Sir!" Silence reigns between them, and Harry feels himself breathing heavily as he stares into the eyes of his Head of House. He feels desperate to go out and into the village, cannot _bare_ to think of sitting up in the castle with everybody else. "Sir, you don't understand. If I stay here, and somebody dies, and I might have—"

"There are much more competent wizards than you in the village, Potter," Snape snaps, fury radiating from him. "You _arrogant_ little child – and what do you think will happen, Potter, if you are killed? What will happen, when the entire country views you as a figurehead?" Harry hesitates. But he _isn't_ a figure head, he isn't – he's an actual person, a person who can fight. "And to take your ridiculous exercise to its extreme, what if the castle is attacked, and—"

"They won't attack the castle," Harry says.

"And how, pray, do you know _that_?" Snape asks.

"I feel it in your gut."

"Oh, well, if Harry Potter's _famous_ gut has such tremendous Divining powers, we—"

"I'm going."

"Do you think you're special, Potter? Do you truly think—"

"Yes!" Harry nearly yells. "Yes, I do think I'm special, okay? And sure, I'm arrogant and a figurehead and whatever else! I'm all of those things, and I'm a terrible person, and I'm _going_." Harry begins to walk down the corridor, his stride fast, and to his surprise, he doesn't hear Snape yell after him, or grab him by the back of his robes, or hex him.

He begins running down toward the Hogwarts gates, and he doesn't look back.

**ϟ** **~ THE LERNAEAN HYDRA ~** **ϟ**

"I'm going," the boy says again, and Severus wishes he could just knock the idiot child out and be done with it. Does he not understand? Does he not truly understand the gravity of this situation, understand how much he means to the Order of the Phoenix? Severus remembers the frustration and desperation he had felt two years ago when the Dementors had descended upon Hogwarts and, once more, the boy had thrown himself out into the fray – for a Slytherin, the boy lacks _entirely_ the most basic sense of self-preservation. Severus is about to say, "I cannot let you go, Potter. Come, speak with the Headmaster," because Albus, _Albus_ , he knows, could convince him!

And then he sees Gibbon out of the corner of his eye. Gibbon stands at the end of the corridor, leaning in from the wall to hide himself, and Severus must make his decision in a heartbeat. Either Potter runs down this corridor, alone, and out into the potential death of whatever horror the Dark Lord has wrought upon Hogsmeade… Or he remains here, in an isolated hall, between no one but Severus and Gibbon himself.

"Do you think you're special, Potter?" Severus demands, and he lets venom drip from his every word. "Do you truly think—"

The levee breaks.

Even as Potter retorts his desperate bile, he is making his way down the corridor, and Severus watches him go, watches him until he disappears from sight and he is alone – or so Gibbon thinks. Immediately, the gravity of his split-second decision hits Severus hard, and he does his best to fold away the suspicion that his decision is the _wrong_ one, and that Potter will return to Hogwarts tonight cold and stiff on a stretcher.

Severus remains facing the end of the corridor, carefully schooling his expression into a smug one, his lips quirked at the very edges, his eyes dark; turning on his heel, he begins to return to the entrance hall.

" _Severus_ ," Gibbon says, and Severus lets his eyes widen slightly, surprise showing on his features. The true _tell_ that Severus is surprised, of course, is when his features betray nothing at all – unless he isn't. He treads a dangerous line in what he can and cannot show, and he wonders if he will ever be able to act on emotion without it betraying him.

"Gideon," Severus says mildly. "You were present…?"

"Oh, yes," Gibbon says, bouncing upon his heels. His rounded cheeks are pink with excitement, and his thick lips are parted to show his grinning smile. "Artfully done, Severus, _artfully_!"

"Gideon," Severus murmurs, "we might easily be overheard." Severus leans in, lowering his voice slightly, and adds, "The boy didn't need much of a push. I merely needed to seem as if I was offering some token protest – in case he survives." Severus lets out a short chuckle, hiding it behind his hand, and turns to the Great Hall. "Shall we?"

Gibbon's expression is admiring, and Severus feels his skin crawl as he steps into the Great Hall once again, Gibbon at his side. But a moment after, Minerva returns to the Hall, now in her human form once more, with Georgina Howlett (Howlett is their new accountant, as of that July), Argus Filch and Sybil Trelawney rounded up with her. While Howlett and Filch immediately move toward the staff table of their own accord, Howlett sitting with Pomona and Filch taking a seat on his own, his cat clutched to his breast, Trelawney hesitates. She all but _clings_ to Minerva, her arms wrapped soundly around Minerva's right, and Severus suppresses the urge to roll his eyes. The woman predicts death at every opportunity, but as soon as it seems to actually _loom_ , she panics.

With all of their staff accounted for, however, Severus performs a quick headcount of his Slytherins, and then of Filius' Ravenclaws. He is missing three – Amstell, Hamish and Potter – and Ravenclaw is a half-dozen or so down.

"Everybody accounted for?" Minerva asks crisply. Trelawney is gone from her side, now seated between Rolanda and Poppy at the top table, and Severus gives a nod of his head. Gibbon is speaking animatedly to a group of Ravenclaws, but at least he is far away from Severus himself. "Where's Potter?" Severus turns his head, feigning a count of the first years so that his face is turned away from the majority of the room.

"He's taken the passageway behind the portrait of the Silver Priestess, down toward the gate."

"And you didn't _stop_ him?"

"I tried," Severus says, and he lets a little of the genuine misery he is feeling bleed into his words; enough so that Minerva relents.

"He's a capable lad: he can protect himself," Minerva says, obviously intending to reassure Severus on some level, and it irritates him more than it ought. He moves slowly away, looking to the doors. As he and Minerva shut the doors of the Great Hall and set about weaving protective spells through the wood, Severus has the fleeting thought that if he had spelled Gibbon fast enough, he might have passed it off as the work of Potter… But no, why should Potter suspect Gibbon of anything?

And what if Gibbon _had_ done nothing? What if Gibbon had merely walked the two of them back to the Great Hall, and Severus has allowed Potter to enter the fray in Hogsmeade – whatever it might entail – for no reason at all beyond foolishness?

It serves him not to dwell on the thought.

"Children, you may now move freely about the Hall," Albus calls over the room. "We have gently pushed the castle to temporarily swap the armoury with a rather lovely set of bathrooms, so take to your left if you have need of the washroom." Albus speaks cheerfully, warmth shining in his features and in the gentle movements of his hands, and when he smiles at the children it seems truly genuine. Most of the children move to stand, and Albus spells the tables to separate into individual ones, chairs replacing the long stone benches and more chairs appearing around the four fireplaces in the room.

Were this an ordinary year, by now the children would recently have returned to their dormitories, and Severus would be listening in the entrance of the Slytherin common area as one of the Fifth Year prefects – likely Potter – delivers a welcoming speech to the new Slytherins. The thought strikes Severus with a force quite unexpected: he doesn't feel an especial emotional attachment to the idea, but the break in this routine, one that he has been so used to for nearly twenty years, is strange and disorienting.

"Professor Snape." Severus turns his head, looking at Nott. Over the summer, the boy has grown like a beanpole, and Severus is abruptly struck at the fact that he must look _up_ into Nott's face rather than down into it. _They grow up so fast_ , a voice chimes in the back of his head, sounding suspiciously like Albus, and Severus must work to suppress a grimace.

"Yes, Mr Nott?"

"May I have permission to use my wand, sir? Magic in the Great Hall, I am aware, is prohibited during meal times, but under extenuating circumstances…"

"You may, Mr Nott," Severus says. Nott's focus upon the rules is an interesting one, and Severus puts out his hand. Nott's smile is soft as he places his book in Severus' hand and sets about very neatly rolling up his sleeves and buttoning them at his elbow. Severus scans the book: Severus cannot speak much Hebrew, but he can parse out the word _Kabbalah_. "Prescribed reading by your rabbi?"

"By my mother," Nott answers, taking the book back and folding it under his arm now that his sleeves are quite bare. Severus takes a neat step back and watches Nott weave his spellwork. For a Fifth Year – and particularly a Fifth Year at the beginning of his schooling – Nott's Transfiguration is truly without par. Severus would be inclined to call the boy a prodigy if he didn't know how much study Nott devoted time to. The rug he Conjures is wide and formed of a wine-red material: it settles to the corner of the room in a perfect circle, silver threads running through its edges and forming a spider's web upon its surface.

Even from his place several feet away, Severus can feel the Warming Charm Nott embeds in the carpet's fibres, and he watches as Nott gathers each of the new First Years, none of them yet awarded a house, and gets them to gather on the carpet. They sit cross-legged, and Severus is reminded of a day where he snuck down into Cokeworth Town and peeked in the window of one of Lily's classes, listening attentively to her literacy teacher from her place upon the floor.

"Aren't we a bit old for stories?" asks a boy with thick, auburn curls and watery eyes.

"No, _never_ ," Nott says, smiling at the boy. He has a natural air with children. Severus does not envy him. "For what are stories but lessons wrapped in words?"

Severus turns away, leaving Nott to his story-telling in the corner of the room; already members of the other houses are showing interest and walking closer to Nott, hovering on the edge of the rug or dragging over chairs to listen and watch as he speaks.

 _Dear Professor Snape,_ the boy had written him last summer.

 _I am aware that during the summer of Fourth Year, Heads of Houses take into consideration what students they might like to take up the prefect roles. I am writing this letter to request that, if I_ _am_ _in consideration for the role of Slytherin prefect, that I be removed; my O.W.L.s are very important to me, and I don't believe I would be entirely happy juggling both the duties of my studies and my prefect ones._

 _My apologies for any inconvenience caused: I assure you I would not pen this letter if I did not think it necessary on my part._

 _Many thanks,  
Theodore Nott._

When Severus had received the letter, he had laughed. That had been in May – things had seemed so much easier then.

"Professor," says a small voice, and Severus looks to the small, round form of Elizabeth Wei. As ever, she is flanked by by Edward Buttress and Artemis Henderson: never in the past year has Severus seen one without the other two in tow. _Hufflepuffs_.

"Ms Wei?" Severus asks, arching an eyebrow. He stands very straight, his hands neatly folded behind his back; Wei looks to Buttress, who looks to Henderson. Henderson looks to Wei before meeting Severus' eyes herself.

"Do you think anybody is going to die tonight, sir?"

"I can no more predict such a thing as that than Professor Trelawney could, Henderson." Severus' tone is sharper than he had intended, but a few of the older Hufflepuffs let out shocked laughs at hearing one teacher so soundly criticize another. "Professor Flitwick is perfectly capable."

"He killed Death Eaters during the war, didn't he?" asks Buttress.

"Many people did," Severus says, and gives an inclination of his head.

"Is it Death Eaters this time?" Wei asks, her eyes wide behind her glasses. She has the same glasses as Potter, Severus thinks: thin-rimmed, circular lenses.

"I don't know," he says. It _is_ Death Eaters, he cannot say.

"What do you think?" Wei presses, and Severus curls his lip.

"I think it rather _stupid_ to ask a man standing before you what precisely is happening three miles away." More laughter from the Hufflepuffs assembled, but this time Wei recoils slightly away from him: it makes him angry. Anger flares in his chest, and he wishes he could dock points from her for flinching so, but where would the sense be in that? For the barest moment, Severus wishes he was Minerva, or Albus, or Lucius – someone better with people than Severus himself, and then he hates that thought, and hates himself for thinking it.

"All of you are _safe_ ," he says, sharply: he barks the assurance like an order. "You are always safe within these walls." The ornate clock on the wall reaches nine o'clock, and chimes the hour. Severus turns away from the children, meets Gibbon's delighted gaze at the staff table, and wonders if he is lying about their safety, or not.

**ϟ** **~ THE LERNAEAN HYDRA ~** **ϟ**

Sitting on the edge of the raised platform the staff table stands on, Severus surveys the room.

The lights are dimmed, the candles and partially extinguished fires bathing the room in a soporific, orange glow, and arranged in neat rows, on silver frames, are dozens upon dozens of little beds. Most of the children are fast asleep now, but some are still holding on. A few of the prefects are doing rounds between beds, speaking quietly to children. Nott, at this very moment, is speaking quietly to a second year with tear-streaked cheeks.

If Potter dies, perhaps Nott will be convinced to take up his mantle.

Trelawney has a conjured moon above her head, and seems to be using it to lull a group of Ravenclaw Divination students to sleep; even from here, Trelawney's tones seem hypnotizing. Seated upon a bed that creaks beneath his immense weight, Hagrid speaks quietly to the Weasley girl, who is tucked up in the bed next to him. Across the room, spread over Ronald Weasley's lap like a second blanket is Hagrid's Great Dane. It is impossible to decide which of the two are snoring louder.

"Argus," Severus says lowly. The shadow beside him freezes. "Where are you going?"

"There's a passage out from the armoury," Filch says, uncertainly standing in his place. Mrs Norris winds continuously around his legs, showing his nerves even more than Filch does himself, and Severus presses his lips together. "I thought—"

"You thought wrong."

"There's no sense me bein' here, cooped up with you and the kiddies!" Filch dislikes people. Filch dislikes crowds. Filch dislikes most things, actually – he and Severus usually get on rather well.

"There is every sense in it," Severus points out, not especially patiently. "As you lack the capability to defend yourself if we come under attack. Take a bed, Argus. _Sleep_." It is the order in Severus' tone that turns the tide: Filch has always respected Severus, despite his youth amongst the staff, and he stands down immediately. Severus watches as Filch takes a cot aside from the others, letting Mrs Norris curl upon his chest.

He thinks of Fantôme down in the dungeons – what is she doing at this time of night, Severus wonders? Victimizing some rat or mouse? A toad, perhaps?

"Severus, Poppy," Minerva whispers as she moves past, and Severus stands from his seat on the stage to follow her. The doors of the Great Hall slowly open, allowing them past, and Severus allows Poppy to take his hand, if only to squeeze it tightly between her own. Albus comes in from the courtyard with Pomona at his side, and Severus carefully pulls the door shut behind him.

"It's over, then?" Poppy asks, anxiously. Her grip is so tight on Severus' hand that he feels one or two of his bones will break at any moment, but that's hardly of the most immediate concern.

"Yes," Albus says. Severus reads the pale lines of his face as easily as he might read a passage in a book.

"Somebody died." he says quietly, voicing what Albus either cannot, or does not wish to. Minerva looks wide-eyed from Severus to Albus, her hand rising to her mouth.

"Albus—"

"Severus is quite correct, Minerva," Albus murmurs quietly. "Poppy, if you will go to the infirmary and prepare to take some of our own – the majority of patients will be directed to St Mungo's, of course, but our students and staff will be Portkeyed directly here. Minerva, if you will accompany me down to the gates; Pomona and Severus will take command here in the Great Hall. The children can sleep here tonight."

"Who died, Albus?" Poppy demands, and Albus sighs. His eyes are _shining_ , Severus notices, and he stares as a tear forms at the edge of Albus' eye, sliding down the side of his crooked, pointed nose.

"Who died?" Severus repeats, and the question feels like frost on his tongue.


	118. Year Five: In The Dark

"You cannot be serious, Potter. Get back to the castle, _now!"_ Flitwick snaps at him, but Harry doesn't so much as flinch away: he stands his ground, his chin raised, his voice steady. It's no longer raining, and the clouds are swiftly clearing above their head: above them, full moon brightly shines.

"I've cleared it with Professor Snape, Professor Flitwick, I—"

"Don't you lie to me!" Flitwick bellows, his voice an abruptly low rumble, and his eyes flare with anger. "You've no more _cleared_ this with Severus than you've convinced him to dye his hair pink." But they're already moving, and the gates of the castle have closed behind them: it's too late to send Harry back. He'd waited as Flitwick had given instructions to the staff and the students, splitting them into groups of three to split out into the village, and he'd only run up to meet Flitwick's stride when they'd begun to set off down the hill. Frustrated, Flitwick says, "You'll be with me, Potter, and you'll _stay_ with me. Do you understand?"

Harry smells smoke, forcing its way into his nostrils and making his lungs ache and sting as he breathes in. The air is a haze of white and grey, the fog mixing with the smoke from the fires down in the village. "Yes, sir. Will you take points off me for cursing this time around?"

"Still bitter about that, Potter?" Flitwick lets out a short, barked laugh: Harry wonders how he thinks of the battle with the Dementors two years ago, if he thinks of it at all. "You're a duellist, aren't you?"

"I'm on the way there," Harry says, and Flitwick gives a nod of his head. They're entering the village, now, on the path into the main square, and Harry can see that the majority of the smoke is coming in thick billows from the Three Broomsticks, thick flames obvious within the wreckage. Its windows are shattered and strewn over the cobbled stone, and Harry frowns, his brows furrowing deeply. Professor Sinistra stands with her shoulders against those of Professor Burbage: as Burbage casts spells to extinguish the flames, Sinistra faces outwards, ready to fight anybody they see. Is it strange, Harry wonders, that nobody is attacking them, or— " _Stupefy!"_ he says sharply, and the shadow that had been moving from behind the well crumples in a heap on the floor.

The silver mask shines in the light.

"Good reflexes, Potter," Flitwick says, and he pulls the mask quickly off the Death Eater's head, letting her hit the ground. Harry doesn't recognize the woman's face, but Flitwick pauses for a second, staring, before flicking his wand at the mask and saying a few charms under his breath. He drops the mask on the Death Eater's chest, and she disappears with a glow of blue light.

"To the Magical Law Enforcement offices?" Flitwick gives a nod of his head. Lights are on in all the village windows, and he hears people screaming further off into the village, but he stops himself from running off: the streets around them are suspiciously empty, although Harry can see people moving in the houses closest to them.

"This girl wasn't important," Flitwick murmurs. "There'll be more important people around us – Death Eaters who can actually fight." Harry's blood feels hot under his skin, and he can feel every pound of his heart as a tingle in the tips of his fingers. He squeezes the hilt of his wand, and his left hand goes to the blade hidden between the folds of his robes: he'd taken the one imbibed with basilisk venom, goblin-made with a bone handle.

"What now?" Harry asks, fingering the hilt of the blade and wondering if he'll have to use it. Part of him – the part of him that killed Stan Shunpike and wants blood on his hands – relishes the thought.

"Follow me," Flitwick says. Flitwick is light of step, and Harry does his best to mimic him, keeping close to Flitwick as they walk down one of the paths and further into the village. Harry can hear yells and bangs in the distance, and as they move forwards, they come closer. They come to an embankment that that marks the end of the village's territory: just outside Hogsmeade, in the children's park before the woods, Cedric Diggory is duelling with a Death Eater. Two girls in Gryffindor robes already lie sprawled on the ground, and Harry doesn't wait for Flitwick's cue: he lunges forwards.

"Expelliarmus!" he mutters under his breath, but the Death Eater hears him and turns his head, flicking a sickly yellow spell back in Harry's direction: Harry dodges. He is breathing heavily as he comes to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Cedric, and they naturally match their footing together as they face the Death Eater.

"Oh ho ho," he crows, his voice rich and yet cracked, as if it's gone unused for a long time. "What's this? You two have fought together before!"

"Expelliarmus," Harry tries again. "Stupefy! Rictusempra!" He throws off spells in quick succession, but each is deflected, and the Death Eater's laugh rings loudly over the park. Where is Flitwick? Up in the village, there's a sudden _bang_ , followed by a burst of sparks that lights up the sky, and more smoke. _Shit_.

"You need to learn silent casting, young man! Struggling with it, are you?" the man asks, and he laughs again. Harry feels his hand tighten on his wand, but Cedric moves his wand in a complicated spell, letting out a volley of spells at once, going through a rainbow of several, and Harry joins him, whispering his spells as best he can: it is surprisingly easy to sink into rhythm with Cedric, to step as he steps, to mirror him.

It doesn't make any difference: the other man is stronger than both of them, and he disappears with a sound like a whip crack. Harry immediately turns to the girls, and he realizes suddenly that only one of them is wearing Gryffindor robes: the other is Cho Chang, who'd only just turned 17 a few days back, and there is so much blood soaked into the fabric of her robes that they've been stained red.

"You can't heal her," Harry says immediately. "Apparate with her to St Mungo's." Cedric, his face pale in the dim light, puts his arms under Cho's limp form and carefully lifts her off the ground: he turns on his heel and he too disappears from sight – his Apparition sounds like a car backfiring. He searches uselessly around him, but it's not use: Flitwick is gone, probably further into the village.

Harry bends over the girl left: the Gryffindor, Angelina Johnson. He checks her pulse and she is breathing, but she's knocked out cold. _Rennervate_ has no effect at all, but she's breathing evenly and with a normal heartbeat. Up in the village, there's _boom_ and the sound of grinding stone, but Harry can't just _leave_ her here, and he doesn't even know how to cast a spell for a stretcher to levitate her without harming her. He puts his arms underneath her, but before he even tries to lift her he knows he won't have the strength to carry her far: Johnson is a Quidditch player, tall and built with muscle, and Harry isn't an especially strong boy.

A scream from behind him and a shower of sparks: he has to _do_ something. He focuses on the ground in front of him and conjures a length of wood that is long and flat, about an inch thick, and he pushes Angelina's prone form onto the platform. It isn't well-conjured – in places, the wood is dappled and bleached, lacking colour, but it's solid enough.

" _Wingardium leviosa_ ," he whispers, focusing on the wood beneath her, and she levitates slowly into the air. But now, where to put her? He can't possibly take her into the village…

"Oi! Boy!" says a hiss to his left, and he turns. Aberforth, the barman from the Hog's Head, is holding a lantern aloft, and he gestures for Harry to follow him; keeping his hand on his wand even as relief bursts through him, Harry does. The last time he'd seen Aberforth, he'd been smirking: he isn't smirking now. His blue eyes are dark with thought, and Harry thinks he spies a mar of blood on his filthy beard. "What's wrong with her?"

"Can't tell," Harry says. "Can't wake her up, anyway. Haven't they attacked the Hog's Head?"

"They bloody tried," the old man retorts, shaking his head. "They were pathetic excuses for wizards when they were at Hogwarts – wearing masks and poncing about hasn't made 'em better at it." The doors of the Hog's Head open when they come close enough, and Harry levitates Angelina's body through the door: the Hog's head is swarming with people, and he spies the tell-tale red hair of Arthur Weasley inside. It's good to know some members of the Order are around, at least. "You're too young to be out here."

"What are you going to do about it?" Harry asks archly. "Deny me a drink when it's all over?" Now, Aberforth _does_ smirk.

"You find injured, Potter, you get 'em out of the fray, bring 'em back here. We'll see what we can do." There's a yell behind them, and Harry doesn't stop to thank Aberforth: he turns on his heel and runs into the middle of the village. The yelling continues, ragged and desperate, and Harry stares, stopped short: a man Harry recognizes vaguely from the village is sprawled out on the ground, ripped from his ribs down to his crotch. He's screaming at the top of his lungs, his hands bloodily grappling with his own intestines and organs, as if he's trying to stuff them back into himself. A beam of white light hits the man square between the eyes, and he stops mid-scream, his mouth still open, his hands abruptly still.

Harry whirls on the man who'd thrown the spell.

"You're a little'un," the Death Eater says. He has a thick accent – from Birmingham, it sounds like – and Harry stares at him: he's a huge man, towering with broad shoulders, and his silver mask has been crafted to resemble the skull of some sort of sharp-toothed thing. The Death Eater steps forward toward him: Harry is frozen in his place, sick with the awareness that he's standing in the dead man's blood. "You scared?" the Brummie asks, seeming to take pleasure in the thought. "I like it when they're scared – but not loud." He clucks his tongue, nodding his head to the man on the ground. "He was too loud."

"Right," Harry says, and he raises his wand.

"You think you can go toe-to-toe with me?" the Brummie asks, and laughs.

"Maybe not toe-to-toe, but I'll take my chances wand-to-wand," Harry retorts; the Brummie is moving with slow, careful steps to his left, so Harry mimics him and moves to the right. They circle each other, and Harry is fully aware that they're in an alleyway of Hogsmeade, surrounded by the backs of buildings on all sides, with no windows where somebody might see Harry go down. There's a squelch underfoot, but Harry doesn't look to see what part of the unfortunate soul he's stood on.

The Brummie moves suddenly to cast, and Harry dodges, stumbling forwards: he's closed the gap between them too much, and the other man _lifts_ Harry by the front of his robes. Harry lets out a harsh gasp, losing his grip on his wand and feeling it drop.

"What now, little man?" the Brummie asks, and Harry can hear the sound of his breathing inside the mask. He tries to kick his feet, but the Brummie just shoves him up against one of the alley walls, and the blow he lands against the Brummie's chest feels like kicking steel. "Can't go wand-to-wand any more… What should I do with you? Break your neck? Strangle you?" That chuckle again, low in the man's throat, and he comes in closer, so close that even through the mask, Harry can smell his breath – firewhiskey mingled together with the scent of sweat and blood.

Harry slowly moves his left hand down to his side, feeling for the hilt in his robes. "Is this really what he ordered you to do? Go around, set some things on fire and murder a few villagers? _Please_."

"Ah ah ah," the Death Eater says mildly. "The Dark Lord has us do as we pleases: he said go out to Hogsmeade, have a good time, and leave a signature when you're done. I don't know about you, lad, but I'm having a grand old time. Wonder how many teeth I can pull outta you before you stop screaming?"

"I'm already missing one in the back," Harry says. "Maybe teeth won't be so satisfying."

"Oh, you're _funny_ ," the Brummie says. "I might 'ave to keep _you_. I'd have to get rid of them specs, though – very unbecoming."

"And the scar?"

"Scar?" The Brummie's chin shifts up, his eyes no doubt squinting in the dark at the mark on Harry's forehead, barely visible in the ill-lit night. Harry hears the Brummie's sudden intake of breath, and in that moment he lunges: the knife punches through the thick flesh of the Brummie's neck and Harry keeps on dragging it through, even as the knife catches on something hard inside the skin.

The Brummie's scream dies on his tongue, turning into a bloody burble, and his grip loosens on Harry's robes, letting him drop to the ground. He rips the knife back, and the Brummie's hand goes to his throat, pressing tightly to the rip in his flesh and trying to hold it closed. He staggers toward Harry, but Harry dodges out of his way. _It's taking too long_ , part of Harry screams, frustrated and snarling. _End it, end it, end it!_ The Brummie is on his back now, both hands pressed to his neck as he takes in feeble, shaking breaths, and Harry picks up the Brummie's wand from the ground, unable to spy his own under the light from the moon.

" _Please_ ," the Brummie says, the words coming out wet and rasping. "You're Harry Potter, you _can't_ —" Harry brings his heel down hard on the Brummie's neck: the man's right hand crunches under the sudden pressure, and the sharpness of the dragonhide opens up the wound a little more: the blood comes forwards in a little swell, and after a few more moments, the Brummie stops moving. Harry feels a grim sense of satisfaction.

Harry turns to look around for his wand, frowning. " _Lumos_ ," he says, trying to imagine the feel of his wand in his hand as he says the spell: his wand tip illuminates, and Harry stares at his wand: it rests in the midst of the dead villager's organs, and Harry grimaces as he leans to pick it up. His knife he wipes on the Brummie's robe skirt before putting it back in his hilt: he realizes with the light from his wand that the Death Eater's wound is turning black at the edges, likely from the corrosive element in the Basilisk Venom – he didn't _need_ to bring his foot down like that.

 _But you liked it,_ says the voice. _So what's the harm?_

Harry puts the Brummie's wand in his pocket and looks to the villager: the man is dead, and it would take too much difficulty and too much mess to move him. He can't linger and do something more about the poor man right now can he?

Harry runs on, and he nearly runs into the path of a spell, just managing to dodge it: it hits the old well with a shattering of stone, and Harry whirls on the figure who'd cast it. "Accio shoes!" he snaps, and the Death Eater lets out a yell as his feet are pulled out from under him: his head collides with the cobbles with a sickening _thunk_ , and Harry turns away, shaking his head.

" _Potter!"_ says Flitwick, staring at him. "When you told me you were on your way to being a duellist, what did you think that meant? That you were _absolutely mad_?"

"He's unconscious, isn't he? He's out of the fight, sir, that's the important thing!"

"Come on," Flitwick says. "When you went after Diggory, I had to run the other way – there was a group of them all together, passing this poor Squib girl between them. That's the last of the Death Eaters, I think: we need to get everybody all together. The Aurors are mobilized."

"Everyone's in the Hog's Head," Harry says, and Flitwick looks to him, then gives a small nod.

"Yes, of course, with Rosmerta's… I haven't seen her, you know, and she's a fearsome woman in a duel. She's probably at the defences there. Come on." They move into the square, and Harry sees the navy blue robes the Aurors wear as their uniform. Several of them keep disappearing and then reappearing with soft blue glows, Portkeying prisoners to the Magical Law Enforcement Offices, Harry would guess.

"Professor Flitwick!" Kingsley Shacklebolt immediately comes toward them, his deep eyes landing on Harry with apparent concern. "You injured, Potter?"

"No, sir. It's not my blood," Harry says, a little shakily. "In the alley behind the secondhand shop, there's a man hit with a disembowling curse, and—" There is a sudden flare of white light that burns so brightly it hurts Harry's eyes, and he feels his scream tear in his throat more than he hears it: the pain is sudden and all encompassing, heat biting over his skin and grabbing at his hair, but it doesn't last long.

**ϟ** **~ THE LERNAEAN HYDRA ~** **ϟ**

Black is locked in the Wizengamot chamber, according to the missive Lupin had sent Severus this morning, and Lupin himself is abed, barely able to walk, let alone Apparate into the castle. This transformation was a hard one, so his missive had said, but Severus had hardly cared to think too much on the topic.

Dawn is breaking, and pale light streams in through the wide windows of the infirmary, which are slightly open to accommodate the breeze. The infirmary is silent, except for the quiet murmuring of Rebekah Amstell, who has been sat with the body of Abraham Hamish since she carried him up to the castle last night.

Severus sits beside Potter's bed: the boy is laid on his back, still except for the even rise and fall of his chest. The burns on his face have all healed, but a white bandage is wound tightly around his head, keeping his eyes protected from the light. On the next bed, Filius lies in a similarly prone state, his eyes closed; although comatose, one could believe he was sleeping.

Setting aside his book, Severus stands. The doors open, and Severus meets the gaze of Hamish's mother. He gestures to the curtained area of the infirmary, and immediately Hamish rushes through the curtain, and he hears her speak in a not-German language to Amstell, hears both women cry.

The Hogwarts infirmary had been full of patients last night: Severus had assisted Poppy in the simpler disenchantments and healing, fixing broken bones and healing heavy bruises, but now Filius and Harry are the only ones left in the room.

Everyone except Hamish, and Hamish is dead.

Potter abruptly stiffens on the bed, and Severus can see the thought cross over his face as he tries to ascertain where he is. "You're in the Hogwarts infirmary," Severus says, stepping closer to the bed and reaching out, pressing his thumb to the inside of Potter's wrist and feeling for his pulse. A little fast, now that he's suddenly awake, but not unusually so. "It is the second of September: you've been unconscious for perhaps five hours."

"We were talking to Kingsley Shacklebolt," Potter says. The burns on his lips had been rather extreme – the boy's own saliva had steamed from his open mouth – but they seem to be well-healed now. "Bright light."

"An enchanted flare," Severus says, feeling Potter's forehead with the back of his hand even as he casts a diagnostic charm over him. "Quite illegal, but I am sure one of your foes has several stocked away. It would seem the Death Eaters attacked, demobilized, and then attacked once more once the Auror forces were gathered in the village's square. The flare landed at your feet."

"Kingsley?"

"Was released from St Mungo's two hours previous," Severus answers dryly. "Most of the damage you and Filius received was due to the blast to your faces; Auror Shacklebolt was primarily hit in his side."

"I can't see," Potter says. His voice is small, and for the first time his resolve shakes: Severus hears the fear in his voice, and he presses his lips together, staring down at Potter's stiff form.

"You aren't blind, Potter," Severus says quietly. "Your spectacles were forced against your eyes by the force of the explosion, and we were forced to put a special ointment under your eyelids, which will heal your eyes, but amplifies your sensitivity to light twelvefold."

"Heal my eyes? So, I won't need glasses anymore?"

"Don't be stupid, Potter," Severus growls, and he sees Potter's lips quirk into a small smile. It is a good sign, he thinks, that Potter can show his usual sarcastic humour. Obviously the skirmish hasn't scarred him _too_ much. "You _know_ —"

"I know how visual impairments are healed, Professor," Potter says, chuckling slightly. "They have to regrow the nerves behind the eyes, whereas this is an injury to the eye itself. Sorry." The diagnostic charms have returned nothing out of the ordinary, which is a good sign. When Potter and Filius had been transported into the Infirmary, both had suffered heavy burns, and it was necessary to daub balms for the injuries onto their faces, their necks – all of the skin that was exposed. "What happened? After the flare?"

"A battle ensued," Severus says. He turns to look at Filius as the older man sits up in bed, his eyes serious as they regard Severus. "It was naught but a display of power, it seems. Many injuries were suffered among the Aurors, some quite severe. I was remanded as an assistant to Poppy this evening: we made sure the students and staff were all healed of their injuries, except for Aodh Delaney, who is currently in St Mungo's."

"What happened to him?" Flitwick asks, and Severus leans back in his seat. He had seen Delaney, a portly man some way into his seventies, babbling like a fish as Poppy had tried to parse out what curse had hit him, and she had had to transfer him to St Mungo's.

"Some sort of curse upon his mental faculties," Severus answers. In Delaney's status, he had recognized nothing, but he would guess it as the result of some of Crouch's spellwork, which is ever-creative and deeply affecting. "Ms Chang has been healed of her injuries, Mr Potter – Mr Diggory advised that I pass that on. And Ms Johnson is hale and hearty."

"Is anybody dead?" Potter asks. Were he another child, Severus might have called over Poppy and had her answer him, but Potter is barely a child now, and is less and less one with each passing day.

"Yes," Severus says simply. "Abraham Hamish is some beds away from you: he will be buried later today." Severus has scarcely believed it when he had seen Hamish limp and still in his fiancée's arms, and when he had seen the truth of the situation in Amstell's face, he had felt genuine shock. Hamish had always excelled at jinxes and hexes, and had received Os in his Defence classes since he arrived at Hogwarts.

 _("It was the Killing Curse," Amstell had told him quietly as she had come through the gates. "At least it was clean… I have to stay with him."_

 _"_ _Ms Amstell, a Portkey—"_

 _"_ _I have to carry him, sir. It's forbidden to transport the dead like that.")_

Severus looks to Filius, and he breathes in slowly. "A few members of the village were killed during the fracas. John Caster, the smith's son, was killed. Anita South, who worked in Zonko's Joke Shop, succumbed to her injuries some hours ago. And— I'm sorry, Filius."

"What?" Filius asks, his white brows furrowing. Severus thinks of the single tear that had run down Albus' cheek, and the way Minerva and Poppy had immediately clutched at each other. Poppy had let out a sob such as Severus had never heard – they had been school mates, in the very same dormitory – and Minerva's blue eyes had been swimming with tears. Pomona's head had been down… Well. Severus had never been especially close to her, but he had seen the deepness of the friendships she formed with many of the staff in the school.

"Rosmerta Whittington, the proprietor—"

" _No_ ," Filius says, his voice heavy with sudden emotion, his eyes wide.

"— of the Three Broomsticks is dead. She was killed by shrapnel from an explosion inside the main part of the tavern." Filius' face is in his hands, shock painted on his every feature. Potter is silent for a long few moments.

"The shrapnel was on the outside, sir," Potter murmurs. "The glass was on the grass – I thought it was weird. A Death Eater broke in and set the explosive, I guess. What about Death Eaters? Did we capture any? Are any dead?"

"Rickard Mulciber is dead," Severus says. _Who_ killed him is as yet to be determined: Severus had seen the body, and blackness was heavy in Mulciber's open wounds, where acid had bitten and burned away at the flesh. Whatever curse had been used must have been very dark in nature, and was likely performed by another Death Eater nursing a grudge. "Filius apprehended Marina Dake, and I believe it was you, Mr Potter, who knocked Gordon Twain's skull on the cobbles."

"I Summoned his shoes," Potter says. Severus stares at the boy: it's hardly a _usual_ way to go about a duel, but his ingenuity is to be commended. Not by _Severus_ , however. Filius shifts in the bed, his expression distracted, and he pulls on his clothes – Severus makes no move to stop him.

"Are you going, Filius?" Poppy asks as she comes into the infirmary, and Filius nods his head before pulling the curtains closed. "Severus, you ought go to bed for a time." Severus stands, readying himself to leave; Minerva can easily be trusted to keep Potter from moving about while his eyes are still bandaged, and Severus steps out into the corridor.

"Professor Snape!" a voice calls him back, and Severus looks to Amstell. The girl's skin is abnormally pale, and she looks at him with her lips slightly parted. "I wished to ask… Abraham was very fond of you. We'd like for you to come to the funeral."

"Of course," Severus murmurs. He feels stiff and uncomfortable in this situation, a girl about to cry in front of him, and he supposes he ought offer some word of _comfort_ … But none spring to mind. "You and Mrs Hamish ought support one another," he advises quietly. Amstell nods, and Severus moves again down the corridor, desperate to be alone.

**ϟ** **~ THE LERNAEAN HYDRA ~** **ϟ**

"Madame Pomfrey?" Harry asks.

"I'm afraid Madame Pomfrey's in need of rest, Mr Potter," says a voice to his left. Her voice is just as distinctive as Snape's, albeit with a very different accent, and he turns his head toward her as he pushes himself up to sit in bed. "I'm told you eluded capture as you ran into the village."

"I felt like I needed to be down there," Harry murmurs quietly. He wonders about his robes, where they're set aside, and what had happened to the knife at his waist, or the Brummie's wand – Mulciber's. "I know everyone else was of age, but I've already gone head to head with Voldemort, Ma'am. If he sees me as an adult, I think I have the right to act like one." There's a long pause, and he wishes he could see McGonagall's expression, or hear some nod to whatever it is she's feeling.

"A curious logic you have there, Potter," McGonagall murmurs: she sounds sad.

"I'm sorry about Madam Rosmerta," Harry says softly. "Professor Snape just said."

"She was a very good friend," McGonagall says. Her voice shakes slightly, and for the first time it occurs to Harry that she really is _old_. She's seen a lot of friends die, Harry would wager – more friends than Harry's had. Harry feels an ache in his chest at the thought, and he knots his hand in the sheet. What can he possibly say?

"Will you tell me about her?" Harry asks quietly. "I've spoken to her once or twice, but I never knew her well."

"Yes," McGonagall says, surprise in her tone. "Yes, I'd… I'd like to, Potter. Let's see… She and Poppy came to school in the same year, of course: that was in '57. She was a good girl – she and Poppy were both Ravenclaws…" Harry sits back against the wall, and he listens as McGonagall talks, listens as she tells story after story.

 _"_ _When people die,"_ Augusta Longbottom had written him once, " _the best we can do, as wizards and witches, is tell stories about them. Talk about them as they were alive, and share the very essence of what they were as they lived and breathed and loved. In that way, we can keep some of the magic that was in them alive._ "

McGonagall sounds tired, and full of grief, but as she talks on, a little of that seems to alleviate. Harry thinks of Rosmerta as he'd last seen her, laughing as Sirius had flirted with her over the bar. She'd been a brightly smiling woman, joyful.

It's sad that she's gone, and he feels himself turn to steel inside.

Voldemort needs to be defeated, and for that, the Death Eaters have to die too. And the responsibility, as he sees it ( _ha_!), falls a lot on his shoulders. He reaches up, adjusts the bandages over his eyes, and listens more intently to McGonagall's story about Rosmerta falling in the lake in her sixth year.

For the time being, listening is all he can do.


	119. Year Five: Tinted Glasses

Harry has never, in all his years at Hogwarts, had an occasion to talk so much with a member of the staff. Even Remus he never spoke to for so long at a time, and it's strange how comfortable he is. They talk about a lot of things – about Madam Rosmerta, about the staff at Hogwarts and the classes that've been taught here, and McGonagall even tells Harry stories about his father when he was at school.

They don't speak about the funeral, or the looming threat of the Ministry's declaration on the 5th, or about the war in general. Talking about the present or the future seems strangely off-limits, and Harry finds himself asking question after question about the past of Hogwarts, and of Hogsmeade. He even relates a few of the stories Sirius and Remus have told him, or fills in some of the gaps McGonagall doesn't know, and hearing her laugh is calming, even though he cannot see her.

Madam Pomfrey returns to the hospital wing at noon. Harry and Professor McGonagall are just finishing their lunch as they talk about how Augusta Longbottom had _exploded_ after receiving her O.W.L. results, considering them unacceptable and demanding a retake of her Charms examination.

"I'll let you go in a minute, Mr Potter!" Pomfrey says quietly, somewhere to his left. "I'll take those bandages off, and I'll put a tint on your glasses, just for the rest of the day. That way your eyes can have a little extra rest, alright? They'll be quite sensitive to light."

"Yes, Madam Pomfrey," Harry says, nodding his head in her vague direction, and he hears the regular _clack_ of her shoes on the linoleum floor as she walks into her office. "Thank you for sitting with me, Professor McGonagall. For talking with me."

"Oh, any of us would have done it, Mr Potter," McGonagall says quietly. There's a note to her voice Harry can't quite identify – a sort of strange heaviness. He wishes he could see her face. "Even Severus is fond of you, boy, and he roundly despises most of the student body." Harry laughs. "I merely thought I'd spare you Pomona's ramblings about her greenhouse." Harry feels a touch to his right hand, feels McGonagall clasp Harry's hand between her own two: her skin is warm to the touch, and he feels the heavy lines on her palms and the wrinkled skin of her fingers.

"Why do I get the feeling I'm about to be told something very serious?" Harry asks softly.

"You can't do that again, Potter," McGonagall says, very quietly. "You could have been _killed_ – and you very nearly were. If those Healers hadn't been so close to you, and if the Aurors hadn't managed to end the skirmish so quickly after that flare landed, you easily could have lost your life." McGonagall sighs, her hands gripping tightly at his for a moment before she says, "You're a very capable young wizard, Potter, astonishingly so – for your age. But you aren't battling other Fifth Years: these are hardened wizards."

Harry thinks of Mulciber pinning up against the wall of the barn, about the sheer _luck_ that had let Harry stab him. He thinks about how he'd not even been able to transport Angelina Johnson's limp body without a struggle, and not been able to carry it, even.

"You're right," Harry murmurs quietly. "Professor Snape was in the middle of telling me I wasn't special, and I was agreeing with him as I left. But I couldn't sit there and do nothing: if I'd stayed up here, I think I'd have gone mad."

"We weren't doing nothing," McGonagall says simply. "Potter, we will soon be at war: I have no doubt about that. And what you have to understand is that war isn't merely battles and blood. There are the children here: they must be protected, and comforted. There are classes to teach, gardens to grow, songs to sing, even."

"What do you think of people who kill during war?" Harry asks. The question comes out in little more than a whisper, and he hears McGonagall's slow inhalation.

"You won't have to kill anyone, Potter," McGonagall says, uttering her promise under her breath, as if more to herself than to Harry – too late. "You don't think we'd force you to—"

"I don't think that," Harry interrupts her, and he squeezes her hand in his before drawing his hand back, clasping his over his stomach. He stares into the darkness of his bandages, and he sees the faces of Stan Shunpike and the skull-like mask of Rickard Mulciber, hovering in the blackness. "But if it comes to it. Professor Flitwick killed people in the last war, didn't he?"

"Yes," McGonagall says, after only a moment's hesitation. "Yes, he did."

"Thank you, Minerva," comes Pomfrey's voice. Harry hears her pick up something from the bedside table beside him – his glasses – and _swish_ her wand, murmuring some spells that Harry can't quite make out. They're Greek, not Latin, and his Greek is awful.

"Goodbye, Potter," McGonagall says, and he hears her swiftly leave.

"I need you to close your eyes, Potter," Pomfrey murmurs, and under the bandages, Harry does. As she slowly unwinds them from around his face, Harry can feel the light of the infirmary even through his eyelids, and it's so bright he cannot _believe_ it. He lets out a short grunt of pain, gritting his teeth as the last of the bandages is pulled away: even with his eyes tightly shut, light seems to burn through his eyelids, and Pomfrey swiftly slides his glasses on over his nose. "Give it a moment. You'll adjust."

It takes more than a moment. Harry stays frozen in his place, his fingers fisted tightly in the fabric of his crisp bedsheets for a long few moments as the pain slowly recedes with prickly complaints, and he no longer has to screw up his entire face. He stays in his place for another twenty minutes or so, and finally he risks opening his eyes.

His vision is slightly blurry initially, and at the sting of bright light he feels tears come to his eyes, wetting the irises and mingling with the ointment lingering there.

"Professor Snape said you had to put ointment on the inside of my eyelids," Harry manages to spit out through gritted teeth as he blinks furiously, trying to work his way through the pain. "But you had to do more than that, didn't you?"

"Much of the right eye was gone, and the left was ruptured. We had to do rather a bit to grow them back, I'm afraid," Pomfrey says lowly, and Harry feels the light get interrupted as she leans in front of him. He sees her through the haze of his own tears, making out the shape of her face and her silver hair.

"You're not wearing your habit," Harry says.

"It's not a habit, Potter, it's a nursing cap: I'm hardly a nun," Pomfrey mutters, her left hand touching his cheek, and he tries not to wince as she waves her wand at his face. _Non-verbally_ , this time – she probably knows the diagnostic charms backwards. " _You need to learn silent casting, young man,"_ that Death Eater had said to him: non-verbal magic is on the syllabus in Sixth Year, but Harry doesn't really feel he's able to wait. He needs to begin studying _now_.

As he looks at Pomfrey, the tears recede a little, and she comes more clearly into focus: there's a little sensitivity in his eyes, particularly if he turns his head towards the light, but it's manageable. He realizes now that Pomfrey has shut all the blinds in the infirmary, preventing the September sun from idling into the room, and he feels ridiculous for having thought it was so _bright_. The tints in his glasses leave the room tinged a dark red and devoid of any other colour, and he looks at Pomfrey for a few long moments. Her hair is loosely tied at the nape of her neck, but several curls run away and hang about her head, framing her face. Pomfrey's eyes, he sees now, are puffy and slightly darker in colour than the rest of her face: she's probably cried a lot today.

"Thank you," he says quietly, as he tries not to think about how Madam Pomfrey and Madam Rosmerta went to school together. "For keeping me here, and not sending me to St Mungo's."

"Aye, well," Pomfrey says quietly: she looks at Harry with a soft fondness on her face, a slight smile catching on her lips. "As I explained to the lovely healers from St Mungo's, I have a rather special relationship with your medical history, Mr Potter – you're in and out of my infirmary like a Jack in the Box. Now, I'll leave you to get dressed."

She closes the curtains behind her, and Harry pulls off the familiar blue pyjamas of the Hospital Wing, exchanging them for the clean set of robes the house elves must have pulled out of his trunk. If someone had his knife and Mulciber's wand, surely they'd have told him? Surely someone would have confronted him about the murder already? Frowning, he takes up his wand from the side and pulls on his dragonhide ankle boots, coming out into the Hospital Wing proper.

"Come back up in three days," Pomfrey says lightly, "And I'll take the tint off your glasses." Harry gives a nod of his head.

"Madam Pomfrey—" Harry hesitates, but Pomfrey looks at him seriously, her eyebrows raised. "Yesterday, on the field… I didn't know _anything_. And most of all I was aware that I didn't know how to heal a thing: I couldn't even conjure a stretcher for Angelina Johnson. I brought her to the Hog's Head on a piece of wood I'd conjured and levitated. I'm— I'm quite comfortable using magic creatively to solve problems, but I'd rather have the right spells in the first place."

"You're asking me to tutor you?" Pomfrey asks. Her tone is slightly stiff, her hands clasped in front of her: without her nurse's cap, she seems half out-of-uniform, and he feels like he's somehow caught her off-guard.

"I shouldn't have asked," Harry says immediately. "I'm sorry, Madam Pomfrey: you're grieving, and I shouldn't—"

"No," Pomfrey says sharply, cutting through him. "No, Potter, no… You were right to ask. You want to know battlefield medicine? I can teach you." Harry stares at her, surprised to have her say "yes" so easily, and she says, crisply, "Come along here on Sunday morning. Eight o'clock on the dot."

"Yes, Ma'am," Harry says, giving a polite nod of his head, and he heads out of the infirmary. It is more difficult than he thought. There are wide windows in the fourth floor corridor, and Harry lets out a sharp sound of pain, screwing his eyes shut and grasping for the bannister of the stairs.

It is _not_ feasible for him to go down the Hall of Staircases – he'll dash himself on the floor doing that. Blindly, he feels his way down the hall and toward the passage that leads toward the Gryffindor tower.

"Potter? What on earth are you doing?" Harry frowns, turning his head. It's a male voice, deep, with one of the clipped English accents Harry has come to accept as relatively ubiquitous amongst Purebloods.

"Sorry, I don't recognize your voice," he says, turning his head toward it. "Madam Pomfrey just grew me some new eyes, but they're a bit more light-sensitive than I expected. I'm going down to the Slytherin Common Room."

"Well, they would be, if they're _new_ , you dolt," says the voice, and Harry feels the form of a taller man come closer to him. "Take my arm, I'll lead you there." Harry does, settling his hand on the other man's proffered forearm, and he lets him lead him toward the stairs. "I'm Gideon Gibbon: I'm your new Defence Against The Dark Arts teacher."

"Ah," Harry says, lightly. He thinks of Gibbon in his mind: a large man with a thick sheaf of straw-blond hair receding on the top of his squared skull, small ears and rounded, red cheeks. "You were robbed last night, Professor Gibbon."

"Sorry?"

"Professor Dumbledore likes to introduce his new staff with some panache. He might even have asked you to make a speech."

"He didn't mention my making a speech!"

"All the more reason to make you give one," Harry says, and he chuckles. When Gibbon stops, Harry stops too, and it occurs to Harry how _easy_ it would be for Gibbon to kill him like this, if the man were so inclined. Cecilia had said she didn't think he was a Death Eater, but what does that mean, these days? Harry hadn't thought a relative of Theodore's could be a Death Eater, but Canton Nott had been an uncle of his. But then, what idiot would think to murder Harry in the middle of Hogwarts? "What house were you in, Professor?"

"I was in Ravenclaw, my boy," Gibbon says. His voice is cheery and warm, and he reminds Harry a little of Horace Slughorn; something in the musical lilt to his voice. Harry feels the staircase move beneath them, and even as they shift, he feels the light eat a little less at his eyes. "And you're a Slytherin?"

"That's right. The Common Room is in the dungeons."

"Oh, I know where it is," Gibbon says cheerily.

"Had a lot of occasion to visit when you were at Hogwarts?"

"New professors are apprised of the locations of all the Common Rooms."

"The Ravenclaw tower is nice, of course," Harry says in a light tone intended to draw a response. "But your library doesn't have the _view_ ours does."

"Library?" Gibbon repeats, and Harry hears the confusion in his voice. "Ravenclaw is the _only_ house with its own library." There's a little defensiveness in his voice: strange, to think how house pride can linger so through the years. Harry wonders if he'll be just as proud of Slytherin when he's into his thirties.

"Not anymore." They step onto another staircase, and Harry feels the smoothness of the marble beneath his feet; this is the staircase with the missing step. He steps nimbly over the gap as they make their way down. "Just three days left."

"Three days?" Gibbon repeats.

"Before we declare a state of emergency," Harry says. He speaks very casually, and as he takes to the landing at the base of the staircases, he forces his eyes open. His eyes flare with pain, but they adjust quickly, and Harry realizes that the tint to his glasses is dark enough that from this angle, Gibbon can't see whether his eyes are open or not. Gibbon has a tight frown on his face, and Harry says, "Unless you think Voldemort will surrender himself, sir?" There's the mildest of flinches, a momentary curl of Gibbon's lip, but there's no way he can judge if they're due to fear or shock or anger.

"I hardly think so," Gibbon says. "It would never be so easy."

"No, never." Gibbon leads Harry into the entrance hall, and toward the dungeons: as soon as they take the stairs into the sweet, blessed dank of the castle basement, Harry lets out a short sigh of relief. The torchlight is so dim in comparison to the sunlight outside, and he gently draws his hand away from Gibbon's arm. "Thank you, sir, for the escort. Are you excited to begin teaching?"

"Oh, yes," Gibbon says. "I have much to teach you, I think, Mr Potter."

"Oh, Professor Gibbon," Harry says mildly, grinning a little and facing the other man. "You should never underestimate the ability of your students to teach _you_ things to." Gibbon's brows furrow, and Harry reaches out, pressing his palm to the dungeon wall and beginning to make his way deeper into the winding corridors. He walks for five minutes or so, taking the lesser used passages, when he freezes in his place, hearing a shift behind him.

"Who's that?"

"Just me," murmurs a soft voice in the darkness: his eyes aren't hurting any more, but with the tints over his eyes Harry's vision is hugely depleted, and he doesn't want to risk taking them off or looking over them.

"Blaise," Harry says, and he feels the other boy suddenly in his space, feels Blaise's hands pin Harry's wrists above his head: Harry is stuck back against the cool wall of the dungeon, and Blaise's mouth is right up against Harry's. The heat of Blaise's body against his own makes Harry sigh despite himself, and he smells the familiar sweetness of Del Rio on the air. "I don't think—"

"No, no, _listen_ to me," Blaise murmurs softly. Blaise has always been, as Harry has seen him, a nocturnal creature: much of the day and the early evening he dozes like a cat, even in his classes, but at night he tends to come to life. It's barely one o'clock in the afternoon, and it's strange to see him so active. "I've been thinking of what you said to me: you don't want to be _Elton John_. I asked a Ravenclaw Half-blood, and I—"

"You researched Elton John for me? I'm flattered," Harry says softly.

" _Listen_ ," Blaise hisses, desperation in his voice, and Harry lets his mouth close. "I don't wish to keep you back, or to make you _ashamed_. I only want to touch you, feel you… What you want, you won't get at Hogwarts."

Harry thinks of the Death Eaters, of Voldemort, of the war – isn't it so strange, that Blaise is so concerned with petty things like this? Like sex, like _love_? "You don't have the foggiest idea of what I want, Blaise." Harry mutters.

"Don't I?" Blaise surges at him, and Blaise's mouth is on Harry's own, his lips unusually dry and chapped, his tongue fighting its way against Harry's own, and Blaise bites at Harry's lower lip, hard enough to draw blood: Harry hears the moan five seconds before he realizes it came from his own mouth. "You want pain. You want blood, and bruises, and a distraction from war. Enter Blaise Zabini." Blaise's fingers are already making short work of Harry's robes, undoing the fastenings with lightning-quick fingers, and Harry hates that the other boy is right.

Harry feels his blood run hot, feels the anger buried inside him bubble quick to the surface, and here is his opportunity to let it all unleash. Blaise's teeth are on his neck and his nails are digging hard into Harry's hips as Harry's pushed back into an empty classroom, and Harry lets himself forget about everything, about _everything_ , as the door slams shut.

**ϟ** **~ THE LERNAEAN HYDRA ~** **ϟ**

Harry returns to the Common Room on shaky legs, his robe collar buttoned up tightly to his neck. The Common Room is thankfully very dim, lit only by soft candlelight, and Harry walks in alone; Blaise is to follow in ten minutes or so, separately. The new First Years, who will be sorted this evening according to McGonagall, are absent, and it's strange how empty the Common Room seems to be without new children in September.

Draco is lying on his bed, a book in his lap, when Harry enters their bedroom, but Harry doesn't immediately greet him: he rushes to the freshly-laundered robes on his bed. They've been cleaned, but scorch marks are evident on their front: the robes are absolutely ruined, although Harry's prefect badge is in perfect condition. Folded amongst the fabric is Mulciber's wand and Harry's knife and holster: he feels himself relax as he places them subtly into his bedside table, out of Draco's sight.

There's a charred envelope in amongst them – the letter Billy O'Neill had handed to him yesterday. He sets that in the drawer too.

 _Thinking_ of letters—

Harry throws the robes messily into the wastepaper bin in the corner of the room, reaching into his trunk and pulling out his letter organiser, an enchanted box that holds far more shelves than it ever could without magic.

"Busy?" Draco asks lazily.

"Mmm," Harry replies, and he sorts through the labels for the name _Malfoy, Lucius_ , pulling it out and beginning to page through the folder. Each page spread is the same: on the left is a copy of Harry's letter, and on the right, the letter Lucius had sent him in return, neatly organised in chronological order. He has too many letters in his files to _not_ organise them this way, and he searches for a particular letter.

 _12_ _th_ _October, 1994_

 _Dear Harry,_

 _I will, of course, pass on your regards to Narcissa; she had been rather delighted with the flowers for her birthday, of course, and assures me she will send you a thank-you note post-haste. For your Charms homework, if you haven't already completed your essay, I might recommend you take in Gardenia Vesper's book,_ Wardens And Guards, _which examines in great detail not only the practical magic surrounding magical sentience, but also the philosophy and ethics. You will find that next year, with your O.W.L. in the subject, that you'll need to think about these things more and more._

 _As for the Tournament, Narcissa and I have the greatest faith in your success, as do all of the trespassers in this chaotic new home of ours. I might recommend you take up some better exercise regime in the next few weeks, however, and keep to it – if you would only join the Quidditch team like Draco, you might not be so awfully thin and waifish. Even Molly Weasley agrees with me on the subject._

 _If you shall sidestep my advice and care once more, however, you might take up another form of exercise or sport. Draco is a gymnast, as I am sure you are aware, and although he practises little at Hogwarts, he could no doubt take you through some beginning moves and stretches; what I would recommend is that you take up a similar regime to my own._

 _Often at Malfoy Manor I would take bracing walks through the grounds and the surrounding area, often with my dogs at my heels, and Narcissa and I would sometimes take occasion to ride. Whilst there are no horses at Hogwarts, you might take to walking through the grounds with that flat-faced monster in miniature Ms Granger labels a cat, although I would advise you_ _strongly_ _to remain out of the Forbidden Forest. Your safety is paramount, even in the pursuit of better health._

 _A swim could do you no harm, but failing this and each of my other suggestions, I have attached diagrams of the exercises I myself perform to keep myself hale and hearty. Narcissa has (in very bad taste, I might add), appended an image of herself to one of the diagrams, but I assure you the exercise is quite useful even without a witch perched upon one's shoulders._

 _I must end this letter, I fear, as I believe I hear the sound of Andromeda coming in through the front door – she announces herself so very loudly – and it is best I supervise, lest she and Narcissa quarrel, or worse, work together to some common goal._

 _With our love and affection,  
Lucius & Narcissa Malfoy_

Harry had never taken his advice about taking up any proper exercise. He'd gone for a few swims in the end, with Krum and on his own, and he still has the swimsuit in his trunk, ready to go.

Harry sets the letter aside, instead examining the attached diagrams, which Lucius had sketched out and lightly animated. He smiles a little at the drawing of a cross-legged Narcissa on the back of the diagram doing what Muggles would call a push-up: the self-portrait, drawn in green-ink and with a much more defined style than Lucius' sketches, hides her mouth behind her hand and giggles as she's lifted and dropped with each movement. The exercises are simple enough, and Harry recalls when he had first examined them how much leisure time Narcissa and Lucius could possibly have – Lucius had seemed to have at least a dozen hobbies for every day of the week, and even now, Harry finds himself wondering what Narcissa could possibly have done with all her time before she'd taken up Lucius' mantel at the Ministry of Magic.

"Is that from my father?" Draco asks. There's no light ease to his voice now: Draco is sat up straight on the bed, and staring at the spread of Harry's folder, and at the pages in his hand, written on fancy letter paper.

"Yeah," Harry says, and a freeze seems to spread across his chest, sinking down into his belly. How could he have been so selfish, passing so easily through Lucius' letters in full view of Draco? A long silence passes between them: the monster inside Harry says, _No, they're yours, they're_ _ **private**_ _correspondence! He has no right to ask for them!_ But Draco would never ask for them, would he? Even to read his father's words, hear his voice, one last time, he would never ask.

Harry breaks the sudden quiet to say, "Would you like to read them?" His voice sounds hoarse to his own ears.

"You needn't to do that," Draco says immediately. Harry can see that it pains him to say it, the force of upper class etiquette holding him back from doing something inappropriate, but Harry shakes his head slowly, making a duplicate of Lucius' diagrams and sliding the original back into the folder.

"I don't _need_ to," Harry agrees, and he closes the folder before holding it out to the other boy. Draco stands slowly from the bed, taking the folder and stroking over its green card surface. **LUCIUS MALFOY** is printed neatly at the top of the folder in block capitals, and in the bottom left hand corner Harry had printed his birthday and his address: _Malfoy Manor, Bottlesford, Wiltshire._ "I'd like them back, if it's alright, but you have just as much right to read them as me, I—"

Draco's arms are around Harry's neck, the lightly muscled weight of his body hitting Harry hard in the chest and punching out a sharp exhalation; Harry doesn't draw away or complain, though, settling his arms around Draco's shoulders and hugging the other boy back. His grip is a little painful – Harry has new marks across his own shoulders from Blaise's nails – but he needs this, Harry thinks, he _needs_ it.

"Thank you," Draco whispers. "I'm so— Harry, I'm very grateful to have you." Harry thinks of Draco lying in his bed after Lucius' funeral, barely dressed and staring blankly into space day after day; he thinks of the way the sight had made him _ache_.

"I'm grateful to have you too," Harry murmurs back. Behind them, several people walk past the open door of their dormitory, heading toward the Common Room's entrance, and Harry frowns as he and Draco break apart. "Where are they going?"

"To the funeral," Draco says softly. As he says it, he clutches Lucius' letters tightly to his chest. "Abraham Hamish is being buried down in the village."

"I didn't know there was a Jewish cemetery there," Harry murmurs.

"The synagogue is a little way outside of the village, but there is a cemetery," says Theodore from the doorway. He looks tired: there are dark circles tracked under his eyes, and Harry doubts he's had any sleep since the night before last. He wears plain black robes, and pinned into his hair is a skullcap: a yarmulke, Theo had once told him. "I just asked Blaise, and he readily acquiesced: I'm told there'll be no classes tomorrow. Given that, I believe we four should spend the evening getting unwholesomely drunk."

Harry glances to Draco, who shares the glance, and they look back to Theo.

"Yes, alright," Draco says. Harry thinks of Blaise, who he'd left with bruises marking him from his neck down to his left hip, and he gives a short nod of his head.

"I know a stash of firewhiskey," Harry says, thinking of his father's cache up on the seventh floor.

"Very good," Theo says softly, and he sweeps from the room. Draco closes his curtains when he returns with the letters. He already expects to cry, it seems, and Harry can't really blame him. Setting aside the exercise instructions for now, he sits down on the edge of his bed, thinking. He'll see Madam Pomfrey on Saturday, and he'll start learning some mediwizardry from her; he'll start doing Lucius' exercises in the mornings, and he'll get _stronger_ ; he needs to start learning how to do non-verbal magic _now_.

There's so much to do that it's daunting, and he _kicks_ himself for not having started doing this earlier, for not having the bloody forethought. How much time has he wasted doing stupid, nonsense things, when he could have been getting _ready_?

He drops back onto the bed, sighing, and then reaches up into the drawer on his bedside table.

The envelope Billy O'Neill had given him is a little blackened at its edges, but Harry opens it up and sees that the letter within, at least, is undamaged. Harry looks at the familiar, looping handwriting and sets his jaw as he begins to read.

**ϟ** **~ THE LERNAEAN HYDRA ~** **ϟ**

Harry keeps to the back passages as he makes his way up to the seventh floor, using the barely used corridors that are thick with cobwebs or caked with dust: these are the halls with no windows to shine brightly into them, and they are the least painful to traverse. He had tried using _Lumos_ at first, but the light from his wand had been much too bright to be comfortable with, even when he held his wand as far away from his face as possible.

So Harry holds the candlestick the Malfoys had sent him for Christmas in his first year, a candle lighting his way: he'd worry about looking ridiculous, but by the time he has climbed up to the attic corridors of the seventh floor, he hasn't seen a single soul, and he's only seen one or two cats.

The little round room in the Gryffindor tower is precisely as Harry had left it last year, and Harry is grateful for the red stained glass in place of the normal window panes. The stained glass is very thick, and despite the sun outside, the light that comes through and into the room is nowhere near as overpowering as Harry had expected it to be.

The crates of firewhiskey still rest in the corner of the room, and Harry kneels down despite the filthy floor, picking up three bottles and placing them gently into his bag. There are easily thirty bottles left, and Harry wonders why Sirius and his dad would have left them here after leaving Hogwarts, or the chess set.

Harry looks at the chess set for a long few moments: if Sirius had left it here, it must not have meant _too_ much to him, especially not if his parents gave it to him, but still… Muttering a few cleaning spells, Harry siphons off the worst of the dust and filth and sets the pieces back into their case. The board clips into place upon the wooden box to form a lid, and Harry can't help but admire the design.

Slinging his bag back over his shoulder and holding the chess board over his arm, he begins the slow journey back down to the dungeons – taking these winding passageways slows the journey considerably, and it had taken him well over an hour to reach the seventh floor.

The letter Lockhart had sent him had been short, but Harry had

 _Mr Harry J. Potter,_

 _I need to speak with you, and urgently._

 _Of course, as a treacherous Azkaban escapee, former recipient of an Order of Merlin Third Class, et cetera, et cetera, I see why you might not wish to leave the safety of the castle and make yourself vulnerable, particularly not in these trying times: I would suggest that you send a letter to Billy O'Neill advising a time when you would be available to meet, and I will come into Hogwarts._

 _Do not ask after how I would do so, but I would meet you on the Hogwarts Astronomy Tower, and we might speak there._

 _Regards,_

 _Gilderoy Lockhart_

Meeting with Lockhart is positively suicidal, even within the bounds of Hogwarts, and Harry doesn't know how the man could _possibly_ get through the wards to meet him on the Astronomy Tower, and yet…

He knows he needs to.

When he gets back to the Common Room, he'll pen a response.


	120. Y5: The Conflicting Thoughts of SS

Albus' hair is very thin and soft, and Severus takes care as he places the skullcap against it, sliding a hairpin through the thin swathes of silver hair to keep it in place. He can see the mottled skin of Albus' scalp through the thinning hair on the top of his head, no longer as thick and plentiful as that of his beard, and he ensures the circle of black silk is settled securely. Being so close to Albus is very strange, seeing his own thin fingers touch Albus' hair, his skin, to pin on a headpiece Albus would struggle to pin on himself: it is a level of intimacy Severus would expect to be afforded between a father and son, perhaps, and the thought greatly disturbs him. He is glad to draw back his hands and step away from behind Albus' chair, creating a much more comfortable distance between them.

Wearing robes of a dark grey, with silver shining at his waist and sleeves only, he has never seen Albus look so very muted. The effect of the kippah adds to the sense of dourness, of wrongness, so different to Albus' numerous colourful hats and headpieces, so _simple_. Severus' own skullcap, pressed into his hands by Theodore Nott that morning, fades into his dark hair, which is tied at the nape of his neck. One or two thin strands of greasy hair have evaded the capture of the black hairband, and when he catches himself in the mirrored surface of some strange device in Albus' office, he is reminded of how much younger he looks when he ties back his hair.

"We should go," Severus says, turning away from his own reflection, and Albus rises from the chair. They Floo into the village, coming from the fireplace in Honeydukes (Albus refuses to enter the Hog's Head under any circumstances), and Severus allows Albus to take his arm, the two of them walking together through the cool, clear air of the village. The sun is shining wanly from the grey skies, and although the light is bright, there is no heat in it.

The two of them wait at the gates of Hogsmeade for the children to come down, and Severus thinks of the way he holds out his arm, the way that Albus threads his own through it. It is only proper, he knows, for a man to offer support to another his senior, man or woman, but Albus does not _need_ support, any more than he truly needed Severus to pin the cap to his head. Albus is as yet strong, and healthy, despite his age: this act of weakness, however mild, unsettles Severus to the extreme, and he wonders how terribly Albus must foresee times changing if he truly feels the need to act so.

Unless he really _is_ feeling so unwell…

But Severus doesn't want to think about that, and won't.

The children come down from the hill slowly and in orderly lines, dressed in plain black robes without their house haberdashery or ribbons. Many of the students Severus recognizes from the Jewish study group that Amstell is heading this year, but others are merely from Slytherin house, primarily Hamish's year mates. When was the last time Severus saw a group of his Slytherins so muted and sad, dressed in their plain robes with their heads bowed?

Never. Never have his Slytherins faced grief like this, an attack on one of their very own… Is this a failing of the Dark Lord's, at the very beginning of his new war, Severus wonders? Has he tripped up without even realizing? It had been so easy to draw Slytherins to the Dark Lord's company in the first year, Severus recalls: so many Slytherins, disenfranchised and in desperate need of power, of recognition, had been swayed by the Dark Lord's Pureblooded rhetoric.

And then Severus himself, who had been drawn by the promise of power alone. Power, and magic he could never hope to discuss alone, the freedom to explore such powers that were out of his grasp…

For good reason, he discovered. But books can be filled with any man's regrets.

Albus takes to the left of the children, and Aurora to the right: Severus brings up the rear, ensuring the children are surrounded on each side by a member of staff ready to fall into step should some attack hit upon them, although Severus already knows no such attack will come. Of the crowd, a few of them are a little older, and walk with their hands in their pockets, no doubt with their palms tightly grasped at the handles of their wands – just in case.

If bringing down Malfoy Manor that very hour, with Fiendfyre, would end it all for them, Severus would. He thinks on the idea, of holding the Dark Lord tightly to him as inescapable flames lick high about them, thinks of the screams that would no doubt come highly from that monstrous throat…

But he would not die. What would the point be, if he would return not years later? What is the point of anything?

"Professor," murmurs a voice, and Severus looks to the pale faces of Vincent Crabbe and Gregory Goyle, each of whom look very solemn indeed. Crabbe's lips are bitten red with bruises, and Goyle's eyes seem dry and red. Hamish had tutored them in several subjects when they had first come to Hogwarts, at Severus' behest, he knows: had they truly looked upon him so fondly?

"We haven't them hats, sir," Goyle mutters, his step solid upon the path as they move forwards. Neither Crabbe nor Goyle will ever be graceful, but the two are each sure-footed, and Severus is certain either could stand firmly planted in the midst of a hurricane if it became necessary for them. They fall into step on either side of him, towering over him with their broad, tall bodies. "We need 'em, don't we? For the funeral."

"Abe, he said you can't even go in temple without one on!" Goyle says, anxiously. "But we want to be there, sir, we don't want to wait outside—"

"Would they make us wait outside? Where could—"

"For such occasions as these," Severus says quietly, cutting through each of their anxieties, "there will be a container of kippot for visitors to the synagogue. The Rabbi knows not every mourner will be Jewish, Mr Crabbe, Mr Goyle: nobody will attempt to deny you, or indeed any of us, entry on the basis that we are gentile."

"I'll be real gentle, sir, I promise," Crabbe promises immediately. His expression is utterly earnest: were the situation not so heavily tragic, Severus might find it amusing. He doesn't. There is not even the barest flare of humour in his chest. If anything, Crabbe's well-meaning stupidity but compounds the grief and the anger he feels at losing one of his own to something so thoughtless as the Dark Lord's rise to power – something he, himself, contributed to. Something he _assisted_ , and is as responsible for as any other Death Eater with worse crimes upon his back.

"I know, Mr Crabbe," Severus whispers. He looks slowly between Crabbe and Goyle both, and he wonders if there is something he could say – some comfort he might give them, or some encouragement. Nothing comes to mind. After a few minutes, a natural gap forms between them, and the two lads return to the group of students moving forward – Severus is permitted his isolation until they arrive at the synagogue's grounds. The gates open slowly, and there are mourners present already – Hamish's family members, members of his congregation, family friends… It isn't as large a crowd as Severus had expected, and he wonders how many more mourners might have attended were they not under the threat of war.

Perhaps none. Perhaps he is merely cynical. Perhaps he has seen too many funerals in too few years.

**ϟ** **~ THE LERNAEAN HYDRA ~** **ϟ**

"Will you be a pallbearer, sir?" Nott whispers as he crosses the threshold of the synagogue. The white stone of the archway seems to radiate a sense of comfort, and Severus wonders if it is magic or the echo of other people's faith. "We need just one more – they can't be family."

"Yes," Severus says. He can say nothing else.

There is no sign of Amstell, nor of Hamish's mother or grandparents, nor of his several siblings. Severus recognizes other faces in the crowd as they take seats on the cushioned benches: he sees Nott's parents, who are hand-in-hand, and who watch their son as he walks around the room, helping non-Jews place kippot on their heads, talking quietly to the Jewish second years, letting elderly members of the congregation hold his hands and whisper things to him – thanks, perhaps, or assurances that he is doing very well.

There are no tear tracks on Nott's face. It is not merely the work of a glamour, either: Severus knows Nott's type, who will throw themselves into whatever work arises from a friend's death, who will care for every person who crosses their path. He wonders when the grief will hit, and when Nott will sob openly in the midst of a History of Magic class, or let out an explosive snap of temper at a crowded meal. He hopes for _when_ , and not for _if_.

Severus has met the Rabbi Michaels in passing several times over the past few years: if he sees Severus in Hogsmeade, he will speak to him at length about his affection for the students of Hogwarts that attend his services, and tell him which children speak highly of him. Michaels fills Severus with an overwhelming discomfort, and has since he met the man when he returned to Hogwarts to teach – Michaels seems to genuinely like every person he meets, Severus included, and Severus has no choice but to assume the man is somehow insane.

Michaels is solemn, now, and the younger rabbi (Severus has either forgotten his name or never deigned to learn it) is leading in Hamish's family, and Rebekah Amstell. They join the front row of the congregation, and the service begins.

Severus hates funerals.

He stands at the back of the room, against the back wall, and he listens intently: he listens as people talk of Hamish's strengths and virtues, and say prayers, and talk about faith. Severus has no virtues, and has no faith: he says no prayers.

The sound of Hebrew washes over him as the congregation begins to pray together, and Severus takes a cursory glance over the students, but each and every one of them is silent, with his head bowed – even those who have never heard a religious word in their life, let alone a Hebrew one.

Hamish's body doesn't weigh enough for Severus' liking. The other young men carrying the coffin, made of a plain and sweet-smelling wood, stoop to let it fall on Severus' shoulder as it does on their own, and Severus' mind is awash with thoughts of how thin Hamish had always been, how light upon his feet.

The thought sickens him as they stop at Nott's quiet command. They start walking again… And then stop. Seven times they stop as they move across the grass, and Severus hates funerals. He hates atheist funerals, and he hates Christian funerals, and he hates Jewish funerals, Hindu funerals, Sikh funerals – he hates memorials, and despises burials, and wishes he has not seen so many of them, in such diversity, and en masse.

How many funerals has he been the cause of?

Too many.

More Hebrew. The musical sound of the language, with its lilting ups and downs and sung notes mixed with its throaty sounds, seems strangely at odds with a time of grief, and mourning. It runs over the top of Severus' head like an unfamiliar breeze, and he stares into the middle distance as Amstell drops a handful of black soil upon the coffin's plain lid. Specks of dirt cling to her fingers and cake around the engagement ring on her finger – the only jewellery she still wears. Hamish's mother drops soil on the coffin, then each of his three surviving grandparents, and then other mourners, one after another after another.

The soil is thick and damp and heavy in his palm, and he tips it slowly onto the pile of dirt that nearly hides the coffin's top, now. He stares at his hand, at the mulch that clings to the slight webbing between his fingers and palms, and seems very obvious under his cut-short nails.

Minerva and Filius are waiting on the street to escort the children back to the school, and Severus is the first to leave the synagogue's cemetery grounds. "How was it?" Filius asks, looking up at Severus.

"It was a funeral," Severus replies. Minerva reaches out, her fingers ghosting over the fabric at Severus' shoulder, touching over the seam there. "And another tomorrow."

"Another tomorrow," Minerva echoes, squeezing his arm, and Severus passes she and Filius by. The skies are turning a bleached pink in the distance, the grey folded in with the strange burst of colour, and Severus walks into the village itself. He steps into the public park in the centre of the village, where there are still singe marks from the duelling the night before. Peach-coloured light filters in through the old trees, which are starting to change colour with the season. Severus stands amongst them.

For the first time – since yesterday, he has not permitted himself to do so – he thinks of Abraham Hamish's face. When the boy had come to Hogwarts, he had been round-faced and red-cheeked, with one of those cherubic faces that curse an adolescent with youth lesser than his years. As the years had passed, his cheekbones had become more prominent and his jaw had defined itself; seemingly overnight, some time last year, he was a man. Hamish's eyes had been a dull green, flecked with blues and blacks; his eyebrows had been thin and arched at harsh angles; he had a strong jaw and a tendency to a stern expression. He had always kept his black hair short, and despite being only a few inches long it had settled in thick waves around his head, glossy and healthy. Severus thinks of how Hamish had looked when dead, his eyes duller than ever before, his stern jaw slack and open, his skin pallid and spattered with blood.

"He was so very young," Albus says softly. He stands between a gooseberry bush and an ancient maple tree, his hands clasped loosely before him, his eyes soft where they land on Severus' face. He didn't need to seek Severus out in the park – he could easily have walked up to the castle with the children, allowed Severus to make his own way back.

"Even the oldest are far too young," Severus replies. They walk up to the castle together, in silence, with a space of several feet between them, and Severus is grateful Albus feels no need to continue the appearance of frailty.

**ϟ** **~ THE LERNAEAN HYDRA ~** **ϟ**

Dinner that evening is muted.

Severus sits between Minerva and Filius, as usual, and he is grateful for the distance from Gibbon. Even with the return of Aodh Delaney, who had limped slowly into the Great Hall to the loud cheers of the sixteen Alchemy students and the absolute silence of everybody else, has failed to raise the cheer of those in the room. The children speak quietly and seriously to one another, and even the Weasley twins seem strangely quiet. As a result of Rosmerta's funeral tomorrow, classes are cancelled once again, and Severus knows many more students will likely attend her funeral, and many of those across wizarding Britain. Filius and Minerva are both silent themselves on either side of him, staring into space: for several minutes now, Minerva has been silently stirring her soup, which is now quite cold.

Severus will not attend the funeral. There will only be a skeleton staff remaining in the castle, as far more of the staff will walk down to the village – Severus knows he, Charity and Aurora will remain present, as well as Filch, and Delaney will undoubtedly be confined to his quarters for the next day or so.

Letting his gaze flit over the room, Severus' eyes land on Potter: even with the ridiculous, dark lenses of his spectacles, the boy looks melancholic and distracted. He hadn't put his name on the register of those attending Rosmerta's funeral, Severus had noticed, and he barely speaks to the young men on either side of him. Earlier that evening, Severus had observed Blaise Zabini carefully removing a bottle of Ogden's Firewhiskey from behind a loose brick in the corridor near his office, and he had heard the tell-tale _clink_ of Potter's satchel as he had entered the Great Hall, but it is not the day for Severus to crack down on underage drinking.

He'll merely have to patrol the Slytherin rooms later this evening, and check individually on the students – but given the circumstances, it is perhaps best he does so anyway. He feels his lips turn down at the sides at a twinge of pain in his arm, distant and aching; not a call, not yet, but a warning that the call is soon to come.

"I'll retire to bed, Minerva," Severus murmurs quietly. "I feel a migraine make itself known." Minerva's fingers brush Severus' arm, and he sees a flash of fear in her face, or uncertainty, that he doesn't quite understand. What, he wonders? Does she now worry that any ex-student leaving her sight will fall to their death?

"Yes, a good idea. Good night, Severus." He stands from the table, slinks from the room, and he is aware of the eyes of students on his back – mostly of his Slytherins, who desire any distraction in these trying times. The walk down to his quarters calms him some, the cool air settling on his skin, and as he slips into his quarters, Fantôme weaves herself around his legs, doing her best to trip him as he walks. Despite her best attempts, Severus' robe hems are too well-charmed for her white hairs to cling to the black fabric, and he moves swiftly into his bedroom, removing from the back of his wardrobe a set of different robes (lacking the personal tailoring his own have) and his mask. He doubts he will need it – the masks are only utilized before those the Dark Lord mistrusts, or when Death Eaters are to appear in public, but Severus likes to be prepared.

Fantôme hops up onto his bed, and she drops onto her back, baring her soft belly to the night air. "This is a deceit you've attempted before," Severus says to her, darkly. She stares up at him, her silvery eyes wide and innocent: he scowls at her, picks up a small cushion from the chaise long against the wall, and presses it against her stomach. Immediately, Fantôme's display of softness and peace evaporates, and she viciously paws at the pillow with her claws ripping into the black silk, tearing it soundly to ribbons before his eyes.

Unable to entirely suppress an affectionate smile, Severus tickles the tips of her whiskers as he passes her by, stepping into his lounge and Flooing to the Hog's Head, his Death Eater uniform shrunken into his pocket.

"A gillywater, please, Aberforth," Severus says as he enters, and Aberforth immediately takes a bottle from the shelf behind him and pores Severus a tall glass. Gillywater is a favourite tipple of Filius', and Severus only appreciates it at times such as these because it is so very weak. He feels the tingle of magic at the back of his tongue and the ghost of gills on the inside of his throat, but the alcohol itself is at an extremely low percentage.

He nurses the drink for some time, comfortable in the silence of the room: it is not until forty minutes later that he feels the heat as his mark flares to life, and then he pushes the glass aside, leaving the Hog's Head via the doors and Apparating on his heel.

He is the first to enter the hall of Malfoy Manor, and he arches an eyebrow at Bartemius Crouch, who has Maxie Caine pinned against the wall, Caine's legs tightly about Crouch's waist, his head tipped back, a silent moan twisting his lips. The pose is positively indecent, and when Caine sees him, his eyes widen and he tries to struggle out of Crouch's grip, but Crouch grabs him by the chin and holds him still in his place. Jealousy flares in Crouch's eyes as he bares his teeth at Severus, a dog's impulse to bite at the hand threatening his meal, and then returns his teeth to Caine's neck. Rolling his eyes very obviously, Severus nimbly steps past the pair, and enters the grand hall with Caine's moan rising on the air behind him.

"What games children play, my lord," Severus says dispassionately, and the Dark Lord's chuckle echoes against the wide walls and high ceilings. His chin weighted lightly upon the heel of his hand, the Dark Lord smiles softly at Severus, and Severus takes the jug of wine from the table, pouring himself and his master a glass apiece. The Dark Lord looks different than he has in recent weeks: he seems much younger, at a glance, and more handsome, his skin clear and soft, his features plainly human. He's positively unrecognizable compared to the state he had been in at the time of his return, but Severus knows better than to say so. Is this what he'd looked like at school?

Lucius had met the Dark Lord when he was but a child, still little more than a babe in arms, and he had told Severus once how handsome he had been in his youth, how different he had come to look as the years had passed, as the war had taken its toll: the _magic_ he must do, they had theorized, to lose his very features in such a way…

"Not everybody can be as high-minded as you, Severus," the Dark Lord says mildly, taking the glass of wine Severus offers him and inhaling its aroma. In the dim light of the room, the thick, red liquid is as blood: the Dark Lord favours dessert wines, when it suits him, and although the wine is too sweet for Severus' liking, wine is wine is wine. "I do not begrudge my servants their baser pleasures."

"If my lord does not object, I shall begrudge them all the same." The Dark Lord's laugh echoes in the room. His voice is still supernaturally high, _ethereal_ in the way it sounds, but it no longer sounds so entirely inhuman. It seems more grounded, somehow, as if he has come down to a lower plane.

"Do you miss Lucius, Severus?" the Dark Lord asks, and Severus turns to look at him, letting surprise show on his face, his eyes a little wider, his eyebrows raising. A beat passes.

"Yes, my lord, undoubtedly. He and I were close associates, as you have long been aware, and it was he who brought me before you, when I was but seventeen. Of course, his absence weighs upon my mind… And yet no more than his betrayal. Lucius might as well have been dead to me, my lord, from the very moment he ignored your call to his side." The Dark Lord's eyes, red and shining in the dimness of the room, and Severus wonders if he has chosen well, to mingle truth with deceit in this way. The Dark Lord should not like him to mourn a traitor's passing, but were Severus to deny it, the Dark Lord would undoubtedly punish him for lying.

"Close associates," the Dark Lord repeats, mildly. Severus frowns slightly, tilting his head slightly.

"My lord?" he asks: the confusion that bleeds onto his features is completely genuine.

"You share Bartemius' predilections, do you not? And without Lucius…" Humiliation flares hot inside him, and even Severus' most concentrated efforts couldn't stop the flush that heats his pale features and reddens his cheeks. He turns his head away, not meeting the Dark Lord's gaze, and he clenches his fists at his sides, feeling the sickly heat of embarrassment burn under his skin, pricking at his pride and making shame _flourish_ inside him.

"I don't deny my predilections, my lord, but I had never fostered— I would never have… I am—" It is will within Severus' power to take a moment's silence and formulate a proper sentence, but he knows it will not satisfy his master in the same way. The Dark Lord relishes humiliating his servants in their turns: it was stupid of him to imagine he might escape such a thing, when he has gone unembarrassed for so long. "You shame me, my lord."

"Not at all," comes the airy response. Severus stares at the Dark Lord's index finger, tracing lazy circles about the rim of his wine glass, and for a few moments does not meet the other man's gaze. Severus' mouth is dry, his jaw clenched tightly, and he wishes he could turn on his heel and _leave._ "I merely worry as to what you might do without some base urge to satisfy." Worry! As if the Dark Lord worries for such things.

"I have self-control, my lord," Severus says, and he feels the slightest twinge of fear within him, of uncertainty. Is this the beginning of some new, stranger humiliation? Will the Dark Lord prescribe some sort of sexual debasement to him amongst his orders, merely to see Severus hang his head and hide his face?

"In spades, I see," the Dark Lord agrees. Behind him, Severus begins to hear others of his servants filter in, but he stands very still, one hand behind his back, his wineglass still clutched before his chest. He meets the Dark Lord's gaze, sees the way the Dark Lord's lips are twitched into some parody of a smile: the majority of the Death Eaters, and the Dark Lord himself, have long-thought of Severus Snape as a _prude_ , afraid of sex and its intimacies, uncertain. Not virginal, as that would paint too much of a target on his back and make him the subject of interrogation, but discomforted by sex at the very least. And as for his predilections, as the Dark Lord labels them… "Do sit beside me, Severus."

"Yes, my lord," Severus assents, and he takes his seat at the Dark Lord's left-hand side. Despite the saccharine sweetness of the dessert wine, he drains his glass – he does not miss the amused way the Dark Lord's gaze rests upon him. The Dark Lord is wrong, of course, as he so often is. Severus Snape no more fears sex than he fears the monsters beneath his bed – he merely suppresses his appetites for such things, as he suppresses his appetites for most things.

Bellatrix sits at the Dark Lord's right hand, and as he sinks into a seat beside her, Crouch meets Severus' gaze. His dark eyes burn with something difficult to place, and Severus arches a silent eyebrow at the other man in question – surely, he cannot be so protective of Caine already? Particularly not as Caine does not, and _cannot_ , belong to Crouch: he is the Dark Lord's toy alone, even if the Dark Lord does not descend to such human depravities as sex. As others filter into the room, Caine brings out another bottle of wine, uncorking it and setting it into the middle of the table to breathe. Crouch pulls Caine soundly into his lap, and Severus does not miss the subtle turn of Caine's head, the slight shift of his body, even as he settles upon Crouch's thighs: already, Caine has grown uncomfortable with Crouch's treatment of him, and what can be done for the boy? Absolutely naught.

"Let us begin," the Dark Lord says lightly, and he leans forwards, looking at each of his servants. Gibbon is sat some way down the table, for which Severus is grateful, but he has no doubt the man is greedy to ascend the ranks and move closer to his master at the table… Severus listens intently to the words spoken at the table, and the way in which they are delivered, looking closely for cues to annoyance, desperation, delight, pleasure. This is his concern whether he reports to the Dark Lord or to Albus Dumbledore, after all: Severus is an observer, searching for the subtlest clues in other people's façades with the knowledge that his own is firmly in place.

It is crucial that they reach for influence within the Ministry: immediately, the convicts amongst the group become restless. Bellatrix taps her well-manicured fingers upon the table top, her lips pressed tightly together; Beauregard Goyle's own fingernails are bitten down to the quick, and a few of the other Azkaban escapees fidget in their places. It is _unfortunate_ to have lost Gibbon's influence in the Ministry, but what of the other departments?

"For how much longer will your Auror training last, Dixon?" Dixon Jugson's eyes widen at being addressed directly by the Dark Lord: the boy is nearing twenty one, now, and has the wide eyes and bandy legs of a young deer. Caine looks at Jugson with unmitigated detestation, and it is hardly any surprise, when they are so similar in age.

"Eight months, sir!" he barks out. "Eight months." The Dark Lord clucks his tongue, seeming thoughtful as he examines Jugson from his head to his chest, as if he might measure the man's magic that way. "And as for the Aurors' _corruption_?"

"Difficult, my lord," Selwyn says quietly. "The majority of the Auror force either joined during the previous war, or were prompted to join by its effects: many are the relatives of those we have killed." Severus might wince, were he able: Selwyn is so plain-speaking, despite the Dark Lord's capacity for temper, and Severus cannot believe he has survived for so long with so little tact. "We might have luck amongst the newest trainees, however: Jugson's classmates and, indeed, underclassmen."

"But they are without influence," the Dark Lord says, his lip curling. "We are to wait eight _months_ before young Dixon might assist our efforts within the Aurors' office, Huw: is it truly your suggestion that we merely cultivate a further pool of the _useless_?" Jugson flinches: Huw Selwyn merely stares at the Dark Lord, surprise on his face.

"I've taken to Esther Fairbanks," Macnair breaks in, smoothly: he will take any chance to talk of his escapades with one woman or another, it seems. "She's an accountant, and her father was killed by an Auror in the last war. Her sympathies—"

"You think an accountant isn't useless, Macnair?" Bellatrix asks shrilly. "What will she do for our cause? Our expenses? Ha!"

"I'm sorry, Bella," Severus says silkily. "Did _you_ have a better suggestion? Have you cultivated many connections in the Ministry of Magic – perhaps by post, under an alternate persona?" Macnair shoots Severus a grateful look he neither desires nor deserves: before Bellatrix can stand, the Dark Lord gestures for her to stay seated.

"We shall speak later on Ms Fairbanks, Walden," the Dark Lord murmurs lightly. Impatience shows in his stiff form, and Severus remains silent. He has no idea as to what the Dark Lord might have planned for him, but he is not so stupid as to outwardly _request_ punishment, as it would be to continue to show cheek – the Dark Lord wants results, and in this venture Severus can offer none.

"As you know, I have been brewing Polyjuice," Crouch says, smugly. Caine's head is laid upon his shoulder, Crouch's hand tightened in his hair, but nobody pays it any heed (bar Gibbon, of course, who is mildly scandalized). "From next month – the 20th of October, I should say – I can provide enough Polyjuice for three members of our order to perform work at the Ministry of Magic, assuming a rough shift of ten hours per day. They ought study their targets in advance, of course, that they might entirely duplicate their mannerisms, their persons…"

"And which three of our order will they be, Barty?" Severus asks: here, he and Crouch might work in perfect harmony to calm the Dark Lord's irritation. "Yourself, of course, and who else?"

"That would be our lord's decision," Crouch says immediately. Ruffled feathers are slightly smoothed: the Dark Lord relaxes by an infinitesimal fraction, and were Severus and Crouch _Muggles_ , and unsubtle, perhaps they might have high-fived, or something equally obnoxious. They merely make eye contact for the most fleeting of moments, and then return their gazes to their master.

"Bartemius should _certainly_ lead the party…" the Dark Lord murmurs, deliberating as he looks about the room. Bellatrix is near bouncing in her seat, but even she ought know she would be inappropriate for such an assignment: the woman wouldn't last a day feigning even the bitterest of workers in the Ministry, and would likely murder a baker's dozen of Ministry workers at the slightest sign of frustration. "Yes, I think so. Bartemius, Beauregard, and perhaps Augustus." Rookwood, who had been staring melancholically into the ether, looks up.

"Me, my lord?" Rookwood asks, seemingly astonished. "I would be honoured."

"Yes," the Dark Lord says, apparently in agreement. "Select your quarries, gentlemen, and we shall have a meeting on Thursday to determine where you might best fit. We might examine other pressure points – such a shame about Stanley and that _Muggle_ … The Daily Prophet. Have any of you come across any sensitivities, any weak points?"

"They have an opening for a copy editor. I thought I might apply." Silence rings in the room: everybody, Severus included, stare at Caine. Caine is sitting up in Crouch's lap now, his knees pressed tightly together, his hands clasped in his lap, and despite the attention he looks earnestly in the Dark Lord's direction. "I had the highest mark on a History of Magic N.E.W.T. in forty years, my lord, and the Prophet looks for high scores in History – and I—" He is cut off by Crouch's laughter. With Crouch's invitation, the others in the room begin to laugh at Caine's expense as well, and only Severus and the Dark Lord remain silent. Caine looks fit to melt into a puddle, his eyes wet at their edges as he hangs his head.

The Dark Lord holds up a finger for silence, and immediately the laughter is cut short. "And what, Maxie, would you do were you accosted by an Auror, or a member of the Order of the Phoenix, without a wand? Wave your History certificate at them?" The Dark Lord leans forwards, grasps at Caine's chin and forces his head up. The tears on Caine's cheeks glint in the dim candlelight, and the Dark Lord whispers, "Would you _cry_ at them, Maxie?"

Caine is breathing heavily, and Severus can see he is fit to lose his temper. He looks desperately into the Dark Lord's eyes, aching for some sign of empathy, and he adds, "They wouldn't realize, they'd never _know_. I could just—"

"Selwyn, you have a dog, don't you?" the Dark Lord interrupts.

"It is my wife's dog, my lord, the animal isn't mine," Selwyn says reluctantly. "A French poodle." There are a few snickers at the table, but Severus keeps his gaze on the Dark Lord's hand. He grasps tightly at Caine's chin, so tightly that his skin is white under the Dark Lord's grip, and his long thumb nail is pressing tight enough to the flesh that it threatens to break the skin.

"Very well," the Dark Lord murmurs. "I will _permit_ you to submit yourself to the Daily Prophet, Maxie, but _do_ make sure to include the poodle's application with your own." Caine releases a sob at the unfairness of it all, and now the Dark Lord _does_ draw blood: he nicks at Caine's open mouth with a nail, cutting the flesh just inside his lip, and when Caine hangs his head, blood drips down over his chin. Caine sighs, softly, and says nothing more for the rest of the meeting. _Idiot boy_ , Severus thinks to himself. The meeting returns to its established agenda.

**ϟ** **~ THE LERNAEAN HYDRA ~** **ϟ**

He catches Caine out on the grounds. He does not know what compels him: perhaps a mix of sympathy and rebellion. The skies are misty, and Caine sits on the remnants of what had once been a bench, and is now little more than a pile of unpolished stones. "You did not truly believe, I hope, that such an obscene suggestion would be met with approval?"

"You don't _understand_ ," Caine snaps, running his hands through his hair. "The way they _treat_ me—"

"You think of yourself as their equal," Severus says mildly. "You are _not_ , Caine. You are a Squib: many of our compatriots would have you dead for that sin alone." Caine lets out a sound of frustration, standing from the bench and pacing, his shoes squelching in the mud. Severus thinks of Abraham Hamish, _his_ student, who he had failed, and allowed to die at the Death Eaters' hand. "You ought count yourself lucky."

"Lucky? _Lucky_ , am I? I'm a _pet_."

"What are you telling me, Caine? That you are unhappy with the Dark Lord's affection? That you would betray that affection?" Severus demands, sharply, and Caine flinches away. There's a softness in his eyes: Severus realizes, with a sinking sensation, that Caine fosters more than a lust for power. The loyalty to his master, to some extent, is _real_. A shame, truly.

"No: don't twist my words. I don't like… _Them_."

" _Them_ ," Severus repeats, and he laughs: the sound is nasty, even to Severus' own ears. Caine stares at Severus like he has never seen him laugh before: he likely never has. "You idiot child. If you say Crouch, say so."

"Alright! _Fine_. Crouch."

"You've bored of him so quickly?"

"You don't know what it's like for men like me," Caine mutters, clenching his fists at his sides. "I just want… And the Dark Lord— He _encouraged_ me. Said I ought keep everybody happy. Suggested I touch him." Caine clenches his jaw, stares out over the bleak, barren fields about Malfoy Manor – or at least, stares out over what he can, in the dark. "He barely ever releases me. If I could only _leave_ —"

"You cannot leave," Severus snaps. "Do stop with this obsession of coulds and can'ts and wishes, you stupid child. Do what is within your power, and stop dreaming of that which is not."

"Easy for you—"

"In the space of _three minutes_ ," Severus says darkly, "You have told me I do not understand, and that I do not know what it is like for men like you. Would you really like to add a _third_ such offence to my memory?"

"Why not?" Caine spits. He looks at Severus now, his lip twisted. "You can't take points off me anymore, can't _glare_ at me for being a Squib, can't do anything!" He looks so very young, Severus thinks, nothing like Hamish. Why is it that Severus feels a need to draw a connection between the two?

"I can do much worse things than take points and glare, Caine," Severus says, his voice dropping to a whisper. He darkens his stare, taking a further step into Caine's space, and he sees the way Caine pales, his tear-stained cheeks turning to marble in the cool night air. "Is that what you want?"

"No," Caine mutters. He looks at Severus' chin instead of into his eyes, as if it might save him from Severus' temper: perhaps this works for Crouch. "What did you come over here for? Just to rub it in I can't _do_ anything?"

"I planned to suggest something you might do, actually," Severus says. "Stop feeling sorry for yourself, Caine." The order is crisp and clean, and it seems to hit Caine hard. He stands up a little straighter, his watery eyes focused on Severus, and although his bloodied lip quivers, his stained chin trembling, he doesn't flinch away. "Order subscriptions to the Prophet, the Gazette, Witch Weekly, Wizard's Staff… Analyse them."

"Analyse them?" Caine repeats. "For what?"

"Signs of sympathy," Severus says. "You have the highest History of Magic marks in forty years – surely you know how to detect _bias_ in a source? You might examine the work of each writer and look at the way they use language when speaking of Death Eater movements, or Pureblood ideas, and extrapolate any biases they may hold. I would _edit_ a report, but you could submit it to the Dark Lord." Caine stares at him, struck dumb, his ripped lip gaping like that of a hooked fish. He looks like Hamish, perhaps. He has hazel eyes, so different to Hamish's eyes, and chestnut hair. His face has a girlish softness to it, and he has a prominent nose, slightly overlarge front teeth… Hamish and Caine look nothing alike.

"You'd edit it? Submit it in your name?" Severus scoffs.

"I would _examine_ it, and ensure you had thought through your analyses. I have no wish to plagiarize your war reports, boy."

"Then why?" Caine demands. "Why help me?" The boy seems to hesitate for a second, his tongue touching over the bloody mark on his lower lip, and he looks Severus up and down. Severus' instinct is to smack the child, to whirl away and rescind his offer, to _spit_. He merely withstands the look. "Would you— Would you want me to—"

" _No_." Caine looks at Severus, steps slightly closer, reaches out for Severus' cheek: Severus catches him tightly by the wrist, twists it behind his back. Caine lets out a cry of pain, freezing in Severus' grip, and he takes advantage of the position, putting his lips directly against the shell of Caine's ear. "I have no wish to _cavort_ with a student."

"I'm not your student any more. If you want—" Caine takes on a breathy voice that he must imagine is very attractive, and Severus wrinkles his nose.

"You are _wishing_ I desire you in the hope that I might assuage Crouch's attentions," Severus snaps, cutting through Caine's lacking attempts at reasoned seduction: Caine's silence belies the truth in what Severus says, and he releases the boy. Caine straightens slowly, stroking his forearm. "I do not, and _shall_ not. I shall give you a _month_ , Caine, to pick out a few potential candidates for approach."

"Yes, Professor Snape." Caine seems to hesitate, for the longest time, and then says, "Why are you helping me?"

"You are a resource," Severus says cleanly. "You oughtn't be wasted merely because you are a Squib. You have an education: we ought make use of it." Caine's face crumples: perhaps he expected some confession of affection, or rebellion, or the like. Severus walks away.

 _Why are you helping me_? The words repeat in his head as he walks back toward the front of the Manor. _Why are you helping me_? Why not? _That's not an answer._ Need it be? _Yes. Why are you helping me?_ Because I can. Isn't that enough? _No._

Crouch moves fast. Not so fast that Severus does not realize what is happening, but fast enough that he cannot respond to defend himself, and Severus' head smacks overly hard against the stone of the Manor's outer wall. Crouch's hands are against Severus' shoulders, his body right up against Severus' own.

"What are you doing?" Crouch asks softly.

"Surely you aren't jealous, Bartemius?" Severus asks, looking up into the other man's eyes. Crouch's eyes are a deep brown, and they are full of madness.

"Jealous?" Crouch repeats, and he lets out a breathy little laugh: his fingers clutch at Severus' shoulders, stroking over the black fabric of his robes. "No, no, no, I know how to share my toys, particularly toys that aren't my own." This much is debatable, but Severus knows better than to say so. "But you… You've never shown an interest, hmm? And yet here you are, walking with the boy under the light of the moon…"

"It's a moonless night."

" _Still!"_ Crouch snaps, his voice shaking with the sudden force of his emotion, and Severus thinks of Hamish's slack features, of Caine's tear-streaked ones. _Why are you helping me_? The question echoes in Severus' hair like the clang of a bell. _Why are you helping me?_ _Did you put it out of its misery? It's only cruel to do otherwise, Severus. Perhaps you ought take the boy under your wing. Why are you helping me? Save him… But he can't be saved_. Voices wash over each other, mingling, echoing. Severus wishes for the sound of Hebrew again: a glorious language, one that he can't understand. "Can it be you feel sorry for him?"

"Sorry for him? Ha. Hardly." _You hope that I will assuage Crouch's affections. I will not_. The heels of Crouch's hands are against Severus' chest now, and even through the fabric of Severus' robe, he can feel the dry heat of them. "What is it, Barty? Isn't the boy enough for you?" Sarcasm drips from Severus' every word. It might have been like this at Hogwarts, were Severus and Barty closer in age, were Barty a year older, even _two_ years older.

"He's a _boy_ ," Crouch murmurs. "Aren't you lonely?" Severus thinks of the Dark Lord's questions that day – had he known this was coming? Perhaps. It is impossible to predict his patterns, even when he is in the best of moods.

"Not lonely enough to ache for _your_ company, Bartemius," Severus murmurs.

"Really? I've always thought of myself as quite handsome." _Put him out of its misery. Take the boy under your wing. Save him._ Severus does not kiss the other man so much as he bites. Crouch moans at the pain, at Severus' teeth, and Severus feels him tense as Severus grasps at the sides of Crouch's neck, kissing him as hard as he knows how. Crouch is dazed when Severus releases him, and his tongue darts out, licking his lips.

"And what would my new bosom friend, Gideon, think?" Severus whispers, and kisses Crouch's chin, keeping his hands tight at Crouch's neck so that the other man cannot lean and turn it into a proper kiss. "If he thought I carried such perversions as you?"

"He wouldn't mind," Crouch says, and when Severus bites at the side of his jaw, he leans greedily into it.

"Wouldn't he? I think he would." A bite: this one leaves a mark, though it doesn't draw blood. If Severus could get away with it, he would rip out Crouch's throat with his mouth right here. "If he knew I were a degenerate like you, Barty…" Crouch gasps as Severus allows his hands to roam lower, and then Severus releases him entirely, stepping cleanly away. "Why, he might no longer invite me for tea."

"What is this?" Crouch demands. He is flushed with exertion, excitement, and his breathing is heavy. He _is_ handsome, like this. It hardly matters: if Crouch were the ugliest man in the world, Severus would still be here. "Some extended tease?"

"Think of it as a promise: a collateral, if you will."

"Collateral?" Severus takes a step away from Crouch, and smiles. He looks vicious when he smiles, he knows.

"You might share well, Barty, but I do _not_ , and will not." Crouch's mad, mad eyes shine with understanding, and he reaches out for Severus: but no, not tonight. Severus is already moving down the hill, so that he might Apparate back to Hogsmeade.


	121. Year Five: Locked Hearts & Green Grasses

Harry comes into the Common Room with an idea in his head of precisely what his letter will contain, but he is distracted.

"Harry?" asks Daphne Greengrass. She has been waiting for him, he sees from the way she immediately stands from the sofa, her hands loosely clasped in front of her stomach, her stare intent. "I wondered if you might take a walk with me."

"Sure," Harry murmurs, raising his eyebrows in surprise. Pansy and Tracey titter together, and they ignore the way Daphne lets out a sharp, " _Shhh,._ " in their direction, directing them to hush; Harry merely needs a moment to drop his bag into his dormitory, and he is ready to go.

Daphne Greengrass is a tall, willowy girl. She looks like she's stepped out of one of the children's stories Remus illustrates: she seems like she's grounded in a different reality to the one Harry lives in, and while she seems to have normal interests – chess, fashion, art – there's something airy about her. She's very pretty, with clear, pale skin and silvery-blonde hair that comes away from her face in thick, feathery waves, and her eyes are a burnished hazel.

She's going to a model when she leaves Hogwarts. Harry knows it like he knows the sky is blue.

When they leave the Common Room, walking through the dungeon corridors at a slow, leisurely pace, she takes his arm: he lets her. He feels like they should be walking out on the grounds, at least (and perhaps as if she should be holding a parasol), but with his eyes the way they are, it's not really feasible.

Daphne wears boots made of a black suede, with a tall heel at the back, and there's a quiet _clop_ as they walk along. They each know the corridors well, even with Harry's lacking sight, and they simply move aimlessly through the sprawl of basement hallways, passing by portraits and alcoves lit by torches Harry can't stand to look at.

"What's up?" Harry asks, after they've walked for fifteen minutes in complete silence. Daphne's expression is distracted, her lips pressed tightly together. She turns to look at him, the features of her face shadowed in the relative darkness, and momentarily, she hesitates.

"Everybody's at the funeral today," Daphne says quietly.

"Yes," Harry agrees. He waits, patiently, and he feels Daphne's arm slightly tighten on his own.

"What do you know about the Death Eaters, Harry?" That question is unexpected. Harry is grateful for the dark lenses over his eyes, as he knows they'll hide the way his eyes widen, and he does his best to otherwise keep his expression neutral. He thinks of Stan Shunpike, and Rickard Mulciber.

"They're Voldemort's followers—"

"Don't call him that." Daphne's voice is sudden and sharp and severe, and Harry resists the urge to argue.

"They're his followers, anyway. They wear masks to keep anonymous: they're loyal to him. Or to the ability to be violent, anyway." A short pause. "Lucius Malfoy was a Death Eater."

"Was," Daphne says quietly. "He wasn't, in the end, was he?"

"Not at all." Daphne comes to a stop, taking her arm away from Harry's and stepping into a wide alcove in the stone. There are darkened windows of stained glass on the walls, but judging by the lacking light that comes through them, the lake is on the other side. She sits down on a leather chaise long pressed against the wall, her hands neatly clasped on her knees: Harry watches the way she takes her plump lower lip under the bite of her upper teeth, worrying the pink flesh. He thinks of Blaise Zabini's teeth dragging over his neck, deep enough to nearly draw blood. He turns away, murmurs a quiet incantation, a bubble of warded silence forming around the little alcove – it has to be tethered to walls or doorframes, and isn't as strong a spell as others, but it should be decent enough for their purposes. "What is it, Daphne? Your mother?"

"I couldn't speak of this to Pansy," Daphne murmurs. "Nor even Tracey – a half-blood she might be, but her father has pure blood, and thus… It isn't that I believe they are untrustworthy. Merely that they might have loyalties I myself could not adhere to." It surprises Harry to hear Daphne Greengrass, a girl of double meanings and quiet intention, speak so clearly, and least of all to him – they're not close friends, like Harry and Draco or Harry and Hermione, or like Theo and Blaise.

"Sometimes it's better to have a more distant friend's perspective," Harry says quietly. He goes to the window, turning his head away slightly and leaning back against the green and red glass, his shoulders upon the cool of it, his eyes facing away from the comparative bright. He watches Daphne, grateful for the light behind him, that makes her so much easier to see even with the dark red of his lenses half-blinding him to detail. "Is it your mother?"

"She does not outright say, of course, that she would be seduced, nor my father." Daphne whispers the words, and despite her distracted state, she sits with a very straight back and a very proper posture, her upset showing only in her face. "But yet I know, as surely as anything, that were the Dark Lord to ask after her aid, or his, that they might readily kneel at his feet."

"And what problem would that be?" Harry asks. Daphne's eyes flicker up to meet his, her gaze surprised, and Harry says, "You don't think I'd assume you'd be on my side in this war, just because we're in the same house? You have no obligation."

"You wouldn't hate me?"

"Of course I would," Harry says. "I wouldn't hesitate to kill you, on the battlefield." Daphne's lips part, her eyes widening, and she recoils the slightest bit… It surprises her, Harry guesses, how bluntly he speaks, but the actual sentiment can't possibly take her aback. Even as Harry says it, though, he doesn't know if it's true. He _knows_ Daphne, has known her year by year, and the idea of murdering her, like he did Mulciber, or Shunpike… No. "I can't afford to see the grey area in this, Daphne. Voldemort—"

"Don't."

"No, I will. _Voldemort_ killed me this summer. He killed my parents – he would kill every one of my friends, and more." He crosses his arms over his chest, looking down at her: shame seems to radiate from her every pore, but there's more than that. He sees fear. "You're a Pure-blood family. What are you worried about, that he'll hurt you? That he'll hurt your family?"

"My sister," Daphne whispers. Her voice, usually strong and serene, seems half-cracked. "She's so young, a _child_ … I've heard the stories. Of things that happened in the war, to girls, boys. Easy victims." Harry's brow furrows. He stares down at her, takes a step forwards: her hazel eyes are watery.

"And what are you suggesting here?" Harry asks, softly. "That I convince your parents not to join him?"

"I want you to protect my sister," Daphne says. She looks intently up at Harry's face, standing up, and she grasps for Harry's hands, holding them tightly between her own. Tears roll down her cheeks, but her wide eyes are focused and furious. "If you protect her, I will do _anything_. I cannot _trust_ , any more, that our blood status ought protect us, or the green ribbons on our robes: if you can keep her safe, I will— I will spy. I will join the Dark Lord _myself_ —"

"No," Harry murmurs, thinking of the Dark Mark on Daphne's skin, thinking of killing her. Could he do that? "I can't promise to protect your sister, I'm not… What do you think I am, some kind of war general? Daphne, I don't know any more magic than you do." Even as he talks, he can see she isn't listening.

"I'll do anything, then, _anything,_ I'll—" Daphne breathes in, desperately, and her lips drop down to Harry's mouth. Hesitantly, her right hand goes to the fastening of her robe at the left side, and he grasps for the hand and stops her. She lets out a desperate sob, drops her head against his shoulder, and not knowing what to do, he lets her. He puts his arms around her, one of his hands on her back, and with his chin against her hair, he stares into the darkness.

"I'll—" He opens his mouth, closes it, tries to think of what can _possibly_ be done, what he can do. "Your parents haven't sworn themselves in?"

"No," Daphne says, sniffling slightly as she pulls away, obviously trying to contain herself. Her porcelain nose is red from crying. "But I fear it will come soon, that someone must approach them… I don't wish to betray my parents, Harry, and I should love to be neutral entirely, but my _sister_."

"What do you want? For me to kidnap you and your sister both?"

"Could you?" The question is so sudden, and so laden with hope, that it hits Harry like an arrow.

"You're at Hogwarts. You're safe here."

"But come Christmas—"

"Come Christmas," Harry breaks in, holding both of her hands very tightly. "I'll kidnap you and your sister both, if it comes to it."

"And in return?" Daphne asks. Her breath hitches in her throat. "What would you ask of me?" Harry breathes in slowly through his nose, pressing his lips together. Daphne's hands are freezing cold between his own, like those of a statue, and he suppresses the urge to sigh – she'd only misconstrue it.

"We don't know that this is how things will go. But if we have to… I don't want her at risk any more than you do. She's innocent – she's a child." He releases her hands, and he takes a step away. He thinks of Gilderoy Lockhart's letter, which he'd planned to write just a few minutes ago, the words all a jumble in his head. "I'll do what I can."

"Thank you," Daphne murmurs. Harry dispels the silencing enchantment, stepping out into the corridor and walking away: he waits, to see if he hears Daphne follow after him. She doesn't. He walks back to the Common Room alone: he imagines Daphne Greengrass sinking back down onto the chaise long and sitting in the silence of the corridor.

When he gets back to the Common Room, writing the letter to Lockhart is the last thing he feels ready to do.

**ϟ** **~ THE LERNAEAN HYDRA ~** **ϟ**

Harry barely drinks that night.

He has been drunk in the past: he's played drinking games with the others, in the past year, and never gotten _especially_ drunk, but now… Harry feels the slight hum of whiskey in his belly, heating his throat from its very base, and he looks about the room. Cross-legged upon the ground, leaning against each other, Greg and Vince sit, staring into space. Draco and Theo talk very quietly and seriously together: Theo has a book of Arithmancy open in his lap, and they talk at length about the subject. Theodore is slurring his words a little, but his maths seems accurate enough, and Draco looks like he's genuinely loving the conversation. Blaise, for his part, is sprawled on the ground between Draco and Harry's respective beds, Winston the cat sitting on his chest and staring soulfully down into his eyes.

As distracted as he is, Harry can't think much on Lockhart's letter, nor on Daphne and Astoria: he sits on the carpet, back against the far wall, and watches the other boys get drunker and drunker. He sets his glass down, still half-full.

He thinks of Lockhart meeting him in the castle…

But no. No, the idea is stupid, risky: they could easily be caught, and what would happen then? What if Lockhart planned to offer something helpful, and he was killed, or captured?

Harry stands up, taking his satchel from the side: his Invisibility Cloak is safely inside, and there's a dagger in the bag as well as the one on his belt.

"I'm going to go sit in the library for a while," he says, and he moves too quickly for any of them to ask him questions. Under the Invisibility Cloak, he moves slowly through the Hogwarts corridors, casting a silencing charm on the soles of his shoes to keep from making too much noise, and then he goes out into the grounds.

It's a decently warm night, although the sky is misty, and very little light comes down from the sky above: Harry is grateful. Keeping the Cloak fastened at his neck, the hood down over his head, he presses his body through the little opening at the base of the Whomping Willow, and he doesn't bother to cast _Lumos_ as he moves through the tight corridor. He feels his way through the darkness, and he does the same in the Shrieking Shack, climbing out of a window on the ground floor. He's grateful for the misty skies now, as he walks toward the village and slides in through a gap in the fencing: even with the red lenses over his eyes and the cloak over his face, he knows that if the sun hadn't yet set, or even if the moon was full, his eyes would be very sensitive indeed.

He does his best not to rush up the hill out of the village. He takes the walk slowly: there is a temptation to run up the hill and into the mountains at speed, but even with the silencing charm on his shoes, the Cloak would flap, and he could potentially be seen speeding past.

The walk up to the mountain is very slow, particularly in the thick haze of darkness, with barely any light to guide him. The lack of visibility is obscene, and he cannot exactly use _Lumos_ to light the way – not unless he wants Hogsmeade to be awash with rumours of a Will-o'-the-Wisp traversing the mountain pathways in the dead of night. What time is it? Midnight? Later?

Harry doesn't know.

The clearing outside the cave is lit by the scant light from above, and Harry moves slowly toward the opening, stepping carefully over the threshold. The candles that light the way are dimmed in their lanterns, and Harry walks carefully inside. Glancing around, he examines the little entrance hall, and then steps through the archway, into the corridor that opens out onto the rest of the cave.

There are no doors.

Lockhart is surrounded by powerful witches, but it seems like they hadn't seen the point in forcing the network of carpeted, wallpapered caves to have doors or windows. Instead, neatly carved archways serve the difference between one "room" and the next, and corridors separate off into different passageways. The corridors are dimly lit by soft-burning lamps, and Harry then reaches archways that have bead curtains or swathes of fabric hanging down before him. Peering through a set of silvery bead curtains, he sees a chair with a yellow set of women's robes laid over it, and he steps to the next archway.

The curtains are a royal red, with golden trimmings and golden rope hanging for when they're to be held shut: this is Lockhart's bedroom, Harry knows for certain. He slides carefully between the papered rock wall and the hanging fabric, and he enters an extremely dark room.

Upon a table, a candle flickers weakly, burnt down to its very wick and emitting very little light. It takes Harry a few moments to adjust to the darkness – the thick curtains let through none of the lamplight from the corridor at all – and he looks around.

The first thought that strikes him is that there are no mirrors.

There are photographs of Lockhart upon the walls, and even a portrait of him: the portrait Lockhart is sleeping soundly in an old armchair, his head lolled back, his golden hair flopping down over his eyes. But no mirrors. Nowhere Lockhart can see his real-life self, in this very moment – what a strange thought. Perhaps he has a compact now.

The furniture in the room is scant: a dining table that has been made makeshift into a desk, an old armchair, and a cot that is right up against the wall. Harry whispers a spell, making the candle remount its wax, and the dying light brightens. Harry looks down at the cot, and he sees Gilderoy Lockhart sprawled upon his belly, his left arm hanging down from the bed. He's shirtless, wearing a pair of white sleeping trousers like the Muggles have, and his hair – much longer than in the portrait – cascades over his shoulders in waves.

He looks so _young_. Lockhart isn't far past thirty, Harry doesn't think, but with his face half-hidden by his hair, and slack, he looks like he's barely more than a teenager. He looks different to the portrait of Lockhart sleeping on the wall, very different indeed.

Harry pulls the cloak slowly from his shoulders, and sets his satchel upon the ground. Reaching inside, he pulls out a knife – the knife he'd bought in Hogsmeade last year. He creeps slowly forwards, gently pulling Lockhart's hair out of the way of his face, and yeah, he looks older now. Harry can see the shiny pink scar on his jawline, where some curse must have opened up Lockhart's skin.

Harry reaches out, takes Lockhart's wand from the ground where it lies beneath the bed, and places it in an inside pocket. Then, he takes the knife to Lockhart's neck, pressing the blade closely against his skin.

Lockhart's eyes open. His eyes are forget-me-not blue, bright and shining in the candlelight.

"Don't yell for help, and don't struggle. This knife is imbibed with Basilisk venom," Harry says smoothly: it is a complete lie. _That_ knife is still in his satchel. "If it breaks the skin, you will die very fast, and it'll hurt."

"Basilisk venom, hmm? Well, I suppose it'd kill me," Lockhart says, his chin pressed against the side of his mattress, and he makes no attempt to push Harry away or lean away from the bite of the knife. Harry had forgotten the sound of his voice, so musical, so theatrical – Lockhart has the voice of an actor, Harry thinks, like someone _made_ for the stage. "Can I do anything for you, Harry?" Scowling, Harry peers down at Lockhart's idiotic face.

"Isn't the man with the knife meant to have the upper hand?" he asks, frustrated, but Lockhart doesn't so much as flinch.

"I believe you do," Lockhart says smoothly. "Me being on my belly and all that." Suppressing the urge to roll his eyes, Harry pulls back the knife, and stares down at Lockhart. Lockhart grins, and he shows all of his handsome, white teeth.

"You're such a bloody twat," Harry mutters, and he stands up from the bed, settling in the middle of the room upon his feet, dropping the knife into his pocket and crossing his arms over his chest. "I can say that outright, now, you're not one of my bloody teachers."

"Yes, well, anything nasty you should have liked to say was given to me threefold in the staffroom, I'm sure," Lockhart replies mildly. He sits up, reaching for the bedpost and pulling on a silken dressing gown in the Ravenclaw colours, tying it up in front of his belly. He just keeps on smiling, showing his teeth with his eyes bright and cheery. "Why, I expected to hear back from you! Didn't expect a home visit." Lockhart claps his hands together, and something changes in his eyes, hardening. "How did you get past the Fidelius Charm? When Dawn and Billy mentioned you, why, I couldn't _fathom_ …"

"I was here one night, when you brought some of your people in. You need to ward the area around the cave entrance, I think."

"Bollocks," Lockhart says, furrowing his brow. "That never occurred to the old noggin. Were you invisible? Used a charm?"

"An enchanted cloak," Harry answers, and slips the cloak into his bag. Lockhart stands before him, wearing his socks but no shoes, the blue material of his dressing gown shimmering a little in the candlelight. His hands are in his pockets, his elbows out.

Lockhart looks about the room, and then says in a good-natured tone, "You have my wand, I believe."

"Yes," Harry agrees.

"I can't light the other lights. Unless you prefer a chat in the dark?" Frowning, Harry sweeps his wand around the room. Lanterns come to life, hanging from natural breaks in the rock upon the ceiling, or they hover against the walls. He feels like he could be out in the sun, the light is abruptly so bright, and he lets out a sharp sound of pain, squeezing his eyes tightly shut and dropping to his knees.

Immediately, he feels Lockhart come close to him, and before he can move away, he feels Lockhart's hands upon his face. Cupping the sides of his temples, the sides of his hands pressed against the wire frames of Harry's glasses, he creates a blessed darkness around the red lenses of his spectacles, and Harry exhales.

"Now, now, that's all fine," Lockhart mutters. "Got you in that flashbang, didn't they? Augustine Nielsen caught one the other day too – he's one of our Aurors, and he wears squared-off spectacles. Come on, now, dim the lights – you can do it without looking." Harry waves his wand, muttering the spell under his breath, and Lockhart very slowly takes his hands away. Harry blinks a few times, letting his eyes adjust to the softer light – it's more like it is in the corridor, now, and Harry can't think how he could have been so stupid, bringing all the lights up to their full brightness.

Lockhart sits back upon his heels, a soft smile still on his lips.

"There you are. Shall we have a cup of tea?"

"Has someone hit you in the head?" Harry asks, and Lockhart chuckles, looking away from Harry. Fondly, he glances around the room, and then drops back gracelessly upon his backside.

"Yes, perhaps you would think so. We haven't seen each other properly in three years, hmm? Since you called that big snake out in the Chamber of Secrets, and I fled… Why, they caught me before I'd even escaped the castle. And well, I did deserve it, didn't I? I'd never _killed_ anybody, that much is true, but I'd stolen so many lives nonetheless…" A shadow of regret passes over Lockhart's face, and he slowly shakes his head. "And Azkaban made me aware, I think. I'd always pushed away my regrets. Always, always: Bonnie tells me the Muggles call it compartmentalizing! What do you think of that?"

Harry stares resolutely at Lockhart's beatific features, and he says absolutely nothing. Lockhart has a lot of rhetorical questions amongst his vocal flourishes, and Harry isn't going to try to answer a single one.

"Well," Lockhart murmurs softly, putting his chin on his hand. "Then we came out here, and we were all justice. I was… Well, I was a little bad, after Azkaban. I was full of anger! Chad led the way." Lockhart's lips become downturned. "Yes, Chad, he controlled everything, and then when I felt a little better, we stopped being quite so monstrous. Isn't it odd, how things turn out? And then… _You_. You and that prophecy, well. With You-Know-Who on the way back, I supposed it seemed rather foolish to keep trying to kill you. Chad had a whole _list_ , you know."

Lockhart doesn't seem confused, exactly, but Harry wonders what's wrong with him for him to speak so frankly to him, to _Harry_. It's the middle of the night, and Harry has snuck into his bedroom with a knife to his throat: how can be so calm and cheery?

"Did you expect this? Did you somehow predict me coming?" Lockhart stands up, tapping Harry upon the shoulder. Slowly, he stands, and he looks at Lockhart's desk: now, in the lamplight, he can see what is on the desk. There is a sheaf of hand-drawn maps in the corner, and some pages of notes from a book called _The New Mediwizard,_ but in the very middle of the oak surface are a set of tarot cards. He looks at the painted surfaces of the six cards on the table, scanning them. "These don't mean anything to me. I don't study Divination."

"I did rather well in Divination at school," Lockhart says softly, dragging his thumb over a card labelled **ACE OF WANDS**. "The cards predicted a dark visitor tonight, but to trust in him – that he would speak of that which will change my life." _Divination_ , it is Harry's instinct to say, _is mostly bollocks_.

He doesn't say that.

"Right," Harry says, slowly. "But I could have been about to kill you, for all you knew."

"You wouldn't have killed me," Lockhart says, all quiet confidence, and he reaches up, combing through his hair with his fingers and then pulling it up into a loose, messy bun above his head. "I should tell you why I asked that we meet… Come, let's go into the kitchen. We'll have a cup of tea." Harry stares up at Lockhart, and his strange features in the dim light. Can he possibly trust this man? He's absolutely _mad_.

Reaching into his robes, he takes Lockhart's wand, and hands it to him. Beaming, Lockhart leads the way out into the corridor.

**ϟ** **~ THE LERNAEAN HYDRA ~** **ϟ**

Lockhart can't boil a kettle for his life. First, he overfills the kettle, making water splash over the floor, but he doesn't pour enough of it out: water bubbles over and onto the hob, and steam comes away from the kettle in clouds. The tea itself is very weak, and has far too much milk in it – milk, by the by, that Harry specifically said he didn't want.

Harry sets the cup down on the table, and he sits on a dining chair. Lockhart leans against the kitchen counter that has been neatly fastened against the plain rock wall, his bare feet dangling down, a mug of hot cocoa steaming between his own hands. He stares off into the distance, seeming lost in his own thoughts.

"You asked to see me," Harry reminds him, after several moments have passed.

"Hmm? Oh, yes, I did." Lockhart smiles, as if abruptly reminded that he is alive, and he cups his steaming mug between his palms. He looks at Harry, and once again Harry sees that strange hardness come into his eyes again, even though the smile stays on his face. "Who killed Stanley Shunpike?"

"A Muggle, wasn't it?" Harry replies, narrowing his eyes slightly. "The papers said it was a mugging."

"I've been told – on reasonable account – that it was me," Lockhart says. His tone remains very casual, and his smile remains on his face: his eyes remain cold, and staring. He does not blink.

"Mr Dorian Keats shares information on both sides, I assume."

"That's rather how spies work," Lockhart murmurs. "Isn't it?" He drinks from the mug in his hands, and then sets the cocoa aside, looking right at Harry. He hesitates for a long moment, and then says, "He tells me that the Death Eaters… They must be killed for You-Know-Who to be defeated. Is that true?"

"Has he told everyone that?" Harry asks.

"No, Dorian reports directly to me," Lockhart says, in a heartbeat. Harry never thought the man could look so serious, but he does now, his wand hanging loosely from the pocket of his dressing gown, his hands clasped in his lap. "So it is true?"

"It is," Harry murmurs quietly. There's a pause between them, a tense pause. Harry does not know what it is precisely that prompts him to do it – perhaps the fact that Lockhart has trusted him with so much tonight, despite the way Harry had come in. "I killed Stan Shunpike." Surprise shows on Lockhart's face, and he stares at Harry: Harry feels a sort of weight lifting from his shoulders, feels something clear in his chest. Not a respite from guilt, certainly – the guilt over killing Shunpike is still there, even if it lessons as each day passes him by.

"You?" Lockhart asks. His eyes rest on Harry, examining him carefully. He looks Harry up and down, as if looking for the new parts of him that make him a murderer, as if trying to see where it is that Harry has changed since he was a child in Lockhart's classroom, disagreeing with his useless lessons and calling him a bastard. "I killed Evan Rosier."

"I killed Rickard Mulciber," Harry says, the name sliding easily from his tongue, and Lockhart laughs.

"You're making this a competition," he says, shaking his head and looking at Harry fondly, as if he is being somehow incorrigible. "Well done."

"Well done?"

"He didn't have a neck, did he? It was burned quite away… Was that your Basilisk knife, was it?" Lockhart taps his fingers upon his own palms, seeming to think. "How old are you? Sixteen?"

"Fifteen," Harry says. Lockhart's brow furrows.

"Fifteen…" Lockhart slips from the counter, crossing his arms over his chest. "You've killed others?"

"Just them." Lockhart presses his lips together, pacing in the kitchen, his forget-me-not eyes tracking from the left and to the right. With a wave of his wand, a notebook flies into the room, and he begins to take down notes with a fast-moving left hand, his quill fashioned after a peacock feather. "I know all of the Death Eaters who were inmates with me in Azkaban," Lockhart says: when he snaps his fingers, a noticeboard on the wall tilts, dropping pages that show names and faces – Bellatrix, Rodolphus and Rabastan Lestrange, Augustus Rookwood, Fenrir Greyback… "We'll kill them."

"You want to be part of this war," Harry says quietly. "Don't you, you want your own forces, trained…?"

"You don't know what it's like for a lot of these people," Lockhart says quietly. He presses his lips together, his quill momentarily freezing on the notepad in his hands. He draws his thumb over the soft pieces of green feather, and then says, "The werewolves, especially, you know… They must go to the Ministry each month, you know. They are placed in compounds with silver bars on every side, and so penned in, the wolves fight. They are unable to control themselves – and those few that might afford Wolfsbane… You know, Harry, it isn't difficult for an employer to surmise their condition. And Squibs, Squibs! They're treated so awfully. Those that try to get work in the wizarding world – they simply can't hide it." The injustice of it all seems to affect Lockhart heavily: a little pinkness comes to his cheeks, and he seems genuinely distressed, genuinely _angry_. "These are the people who loved my books most, you know. Such unlikely adventures…"

Lockhart brings the pages to his chest, holding them tightly there.

"The plan," Lockhart murmurs, looking back to Harry. "is for me and the girls – Jacqueline, Bonnie, Sara-Dean – we'll kill some of the Death Eaters. If it needs to be done, it will be done: I'll explain the situation. Our teams… We're teaching people defensive magic and defensive tactics, teaching Squibs first-aid with enchanted objects and potions, offering food and places to stay to werewolves. I'm not raising an army, Harry."

"Why?" Harry asks. Lockhart is very silent, his notepad against his chest, his peacock quill held loosely in his hands. "Why do this?"

"Those lives I stole…" Lockhart looks at Harry. His eyes look sad. "We must make it back somehow, mustn't we? If these people see me as a leader, then I shall be a leader. It is the least I could possibly do."

Harry wants to ask a thousand questions. It occurs to him that he wants to ask for Lockhart's whole _story_ – why did he start Obliviating people in the first place? Why did these women decide to break him out? Was he sad when Chad Arnett died? What was it like in Azkaban?

There are too many questions for him to pick only one.

"So you're suggesting that we form an alliance. That you kill Death Eaters, play the part I feigned to the Order to make me look more innocent, and that… What? What do I do?"

"You defeat You-Know-Who. Or lead the war, or act as a figurehead, or keep people's spirits high…" Lockhart says, and then seems to regret it. "What do _you_ want to do?"

"Kill Death Eaters with my bare hands, until there's none left." Lockhart considers this for a long moment.

"Are you sure? To kill people… It's a hard decision."

"I've already made it," Harry points out. "Shunpike, Mulciber. I stabbed them both, felt them bleed over my hands."

"Do you feel guilty?"

"Yes."

"Me too." Lockhart chuckles, softly. "I'll write to you."

"Is that safe?"

"Safer than you coming here, or me coming into Hogwarts…" Lockhart looks down at Harry, _stares_ down at him. "I am sorry. For what I would have done to you, for treating you as I did in my classes – and I knew absolutely nothing. Do you know that, that I knew nothing?"

"I had my suspicions." Lockhart grins.

"Yes, I suppose you did."

**ϟ** **~ THE LERNAEAN HYDRA ~** **ϟ**

He's on something, Harry is certain. As he slips further into the dungeons, he pulls the Invisibility Cloak off of his shoulders and folds it into his bag. Lockhart must have been on some sort of drug to make his divination easier, or perhaps he's caught some sort of mould from being in that cave, but it couldn't possibly have been that easy.

Lockhart can't possibly have a _plan_.

A thin, bony hand settles on Harry's shoulder, and grasps him by the fabric of his robes. He's all but lifted from his feet as he's thrown into Snape's office, and he nearly falls flat on his face, only just pulling himself out of the stumble.

"Oh, good," Harry says. "You're awake."

"Who performed the Fidelius Charm for Gilderoy Lockhart?" Snape demands. Dropping into the chair in front of Snape's desk, Harry lets out a soft sigh.

"Let me get the lies straight in my head before I start answering questions," he mutters, and Snape crosses his arms tightly over his chest, a fierce look on his face.


	122. Year Five: Mentorship In Murder

Severus' head will not stop thrumming with sound. He slowly exits the woods of Hogsmeade, taking the path into town: his head is slightly bowed, his gaze concentrated not on his surroundings, but instead upon his own shoes. They are made of deepest black dragonhide, and they make neither a sound nor a footstep on the ground: no one ever comments on how suspicious this might make him, for no one ever suspects he is a spy. Many Hogsmeade villagers have commented to Severus in the past on this eccentricity of his, as if he might break out in a smile and invite them over for tea, as other Hogwarts staff would, as if he might _make friends_.

Severus Snape does not have friends.

Severus Snape has dragonhide shoes of deepest black, and they shine in the light, the hide curved around his thin feet. He will concentrate on his shoes, and he will not pay attention to the swarming voices in his head, each crying out for attention – this is a dangerous game he is to play with Bartemius Crouch, and for what? So that Crouch might leave Caine alone for a week or two?

Severus knows well that he will not be able to hold Crouch's eye. He is not a handsome man, nor a charming one – Crouch has merely decided he desires some sort of enigma, and he will soon become bored with what little Severus has to offer, in his double meanings and sarcastic speech. Crouch wishes to be _worshiped_ , and Severus is not about to do that – even were he to pretend, the Dark Lord would become suspicious.

The Dark Lord will be suspicious anyway – but no, the conversation they had about Severus' _predilections_. He might easily be assumed to be following the Dark Lord's insult as an order, a guideline to follow. That is a small boon, Severus supposes, and will cover his tracks when it comes to Caine.

"Professor Snape," an elderly voice says, and Severus suppresses the deep-seated desire to turn on his heel and walk away, as he might do with one of the students if he had so much to think about. Unfortunately, adult society has never allowed his disinterest in human contact to truly _flourish_.

He turns his head.

Rabbi Michaels stands with his hands loosely clasped in front of his chest. He wears a dark robe that has been fashioned after a Muggle style of the late 19th century: it is double breasted, with pockets, tight sleeves, and a vest that looks similar to a waistcoat, though the skirt is normal in its design.

"Rabbi," Severus says cautiously. The Rabbi Michaels is watching him, his face aged and wrinkled with a great many lines, his eyes a brown so light it seems almost yellow in the evening torchlight.

"You don't wish to speak right now," he says softly. "My apologies: I shall leave you be." He reaches out, and when he touches Severus' left hand hand, Severus feels the lack of callouses on the other man's hands – he has soft hands, even in his old age. Severus is too surprised and uncertain to pull away, and the rabbi holds his hand only for a few long seconds before he says, "It will all be fine in the end, my boy. Whether you believe in God, whether you believe He has a plan for us, or not… The universe balances itself out. All will be well: sacrifices may be made to reach this equilibrium, but all will be well." The old man releases Severus' hand, and Severus says nothing as he watches the old man move slowly away, his neck bent, his knees slightly unsteady, in the direction of the _Cauldron's Wax_.

Severus stares at his own hand, feeling the lingering warmth of the other man's hand on his own skin: Severus has bony fingers, scarred palms and bad circulation, and his hands are eternally cold. Banal and ridiculous as they might have been, the rabbi's words ring through his head, and overpower his mind's latent desire to repeat key phrases again, and again, and again. For that, at least, he is grateful.

Tonight, he will rest early, he thinks. His bed calls to him with the song of a siren, and he is desperate to lay down flat on the most _remotely_ plush service – even the heather plants are looking unfortunately comfortable, down here in the village.

And yet—

Severus frowns. The frown deepens, twisting his mouth: he feels his brows knit together as they lower, and he stares with a sudden, grim understanding up the path out of Hogsmeade – the path that leads into the mountains. Completely silent, he sees the slow press of invisible boots upon the slightly damp path, pressing against the grass or soil for a moment and then coming away, leaving new prints in their wake: nobody, as of late, is using the path up into the mountains, as the Acromantula are settling into their new home and growing bolder with each passing day. There is no tell-tale shimmer from a Disillusionment charm – Severus can see that this is the work of an Invisibility Cloak, and he abandons the thought of his bed entirely.

 _Potter_.

**ϟ** **~ THE LERNAEAN HYDRA ~** **ϟ**

Severus bides his time before he grabs the boy, following after him with a Disillusionment charm in place upon his own head. He had waited in the clearing, methodically ripping part of his skirt hem into pieces to keep from going absolutely mad, and then the boy had appeared as invisibly as he'd disappeared, and Severus had followed him to the Shrieking Shack's broken fence, then returned to his own quarters via the Floo in the Hog's Head – a private connection, fortunately, that can only be utilized by himself.

He had waited in the corridor, taking the time to _calm himself_.

His father had been prone to rages of apoplectic proportions, throwing dishes and plates – either at the walls or at Severus and Mother – and Severus has always been deeply aware of the tendency in himself, and has tried to stray away from it.

" _Severus_ ," Lucius had once murmured to him, disapproval dripping from his words like venom. He had come to meet Severus at King's Cross station, that Severus might stay with he and Narcissa for the summer as he approached a summer placement in an apothecary in Bottlesford, near Malfoy Manor. Lucius had touched his shoulders, his jaw, examining him as if searching for damage, and yet ignoring the new cut on the side of his face – a gift from James Potter. " _Rage is so unbecoming, my friend, and so undignified. If you wish to truly hurt someone, you ought remain cold as ice as you do so."_

Cold as ice. Severus can be _cold_.

He grabs Potter by the shoulders and hauls him like a barrel, all but throwing the boy into his office: the boy stumbles, but seems otherwise unruffled as Severus sweeps away from him. He clenches and unclenches his fists, feeling himself entirely unable to be calm – how can he be calm? The boy is not merely foolhardy, or stupid – he is _absolutely insane!_ "Oh, good," Potter says. "You're awake."

"Who performed the Fidelius Charm for Gilderoy Lockhart?" Severus snaps out. It is best he ask this question first: any other question will lead to his positively losing his head.

"Let me get the lies straight in my head before I start answering questions," the boy says. Severus stares directly at him, and he crosses his arms over his chest, in order that they not be free for other things – such as _strangling_.

 _"_ _He said I sounded like a factory man, said it was for the best that I'm studying Potions, as I'll be just great for stirring a vat in a Sleekeazy's potion manufactorum. Said he might be able to convince his father to give me a job if I kiss up to him a bit!"_

 _"_ _You are pacing. This is not what I meant by_ _ **cold**_ _."_

 _"_ _Well, what would you do!?"_

 _"_ _Thank him gracefully for his offer and perhaps mildly suggest that unlike him, you do not need to rely on nepotism to succeed."_ Severus had paused, his jaw set, his stare aimed forwards: for the barest few seconds, he had stopped his pacing of Lucius' aviary, and had slowly turned to face the older man.

 _"_ _That's rather good,"_ he had said, reluctantly. Lucius, quietly cooing at the dove on his hand, had merely nodded his head. Thinking back, Lucius had been so very young – he had very little of the muscle he put on in the years to come, and although he was broad, he was also rather lithe. Severus had often thought he resembled the birds he so adored: ready to take flight at any moment. " _Let me teach you a spell to take care of that cut, shall I? You've enough scars without us marring your face a little more."_

"Professor?" Severus is sitting down. When had that happened? He feels slightly faint, his head spinning a little more than it ought, and he presses his lips together. Tipping his head back, Severus searches for any sign of poison within his body: a rather subtle, but complex piece of wandless magic that allows one to search for defects within themselves. All seems well… He must merely be overtired – it would not be the first time he has worked himself to exhaustion. He leans his chin forwards again. Potter is looking down at him, his eyebrows lowered, his expression betraying a mix of worry and confusion.

"In the storage cabinet to the left of the door. Third shelf, fourth bottle from the left: it is contained within a volumetric flask, and has a lilac colour." Potter moves immediately, opening up the cupboard and looking for the bottle in question. Leaning forwards, Severus catches his reflection in the glass face of his grandfather clock: he looks rather pallid, but not especially more than usual.

"Here," Potter says. Now, at least, he appears _cowed_ instead of giving himself over to the cheek he seems so determined to display in Severus' presence. Severus takes the flask, carefully pouring a measure of its contents into a Conjured glass, and knocks the substance back in one smooth movement. "What is it?"

Severus hands the glass to him. Potter takes it, and he brings it to his nose, as any good Potioneer would. Severus watches the way his nostrils flare as he inhales. It occurs to him that Potter's nostrils flare in exactly the same way Lily's had used to, but he is too busy to feel melancholy, and dismisses the emotion as soon as it arrives. The potion is already beginning to take effect, dancing over his skin and making him feel replenished from the bottom of his very soul – Liquid Sleep lasts only for a short time, three hours at most, and can be very dangerous if ingested too often, but it is a valuable stopgap when needs be. Already, the insatiable chatter of overlapping memories and voices are entirely quiet, and he no longer feels so irrationally close to the edge.

"Smells of elderberries," Potter says. "Elderberries and something coppery, a tang… Some kind of blood?"

"Not blood," Severus corrects cleanly.

"Is it actual copper? Oh, it's brewed in a copper cauldron?" Potter frowns, scrunching up his nose – Lily had never done that, but he had seen the experience once or twice on the face of James Potter, when he had been concentrated on a particularly awful Hex or, later on, on Lily herself. "Restorative potions are brewed in copper cauldrons." He sees the thoughts cross over the boy's face as he tries to puzzle out the conundrum, and he wonders if the boy would be so studious without the thread of the Dark Lord looming over his head.

What a thought.

"It is far beyond NEWT level, Potter, though I am _reluctantly_ impressed you deduced so much," Severus mutters, taking the glass back and Vanishing it into the ether; the flask he stoppers, and returns to its cupboard. " _Liquid Sleep_ is the rather unimaginative name for the potion – supremely difficult to brew, and subsequently very rare. For a very short time, it offers the user the sensation of a good night's rest, although it will quickly poison you if you become in any way reliant on it."

"You must think I'm insane," Potter says as Severus sinks slowly into the chair behind his desk; Potter hops up onto the desk himself, precociously and without care for the disrespect of it all. Severus finds, with the _bliss_ of a faux night's sleep between his ears, that he does not care enough to disallow it.

"I do indeed think that," Severus agrees, in a mild tone. "You crept into Hogsmeade in the middle of the night, disappeared into a place _occluded_ from discovery alone, and now you return and tell me, _Severus Snape_ , that you plan to lie directly to me. Do you consider that to be a remotely intelligent idea, Potter?"

"I've lied to you before," Potter points out.

"Is this your way of calming my ire, Potter? It isn't effective." Potter puts his chin onto his hand, staring into space for a moment.

"Do you have a Pensieve?" he asks quietly. "I think I'd rather show you what happened rather than explain it – I'm worried I'd miss something." Severus keeps his expression perfectly neutral, his gaze on the boy's face. There is something in Potter's expression that is unfathomable, his eyes deep with something Severus has never seen.

"The Headmaster has a Pensieve, but he is asleep, Potter," Severus says quietly. "Are you truly worried you would _miss_ something? Or did something different happen, something you cannot voice?" Lockhart is potentially still completely mad, and alone with him and his cabal of witches, any number of pains could have befallen the boy.

Potter sighs.

"Theo was so sad," he says. "About Abraham Hamish. And you know that Draco is… Well, he's getting better, I guess. I just… I suppose I don't know what I'm doing. What I'm _supposed_ to be doing."

"You are supposed to be getting an education," Severus says.

"Those are Albus' words, not yours," Potter says. Severus lets his expression show the wry smile that comes to his lips. It has been a long time since he has felt so well-rested, so completely calm and unstressed: the effects of the potion are so subtle, and yet he wishes he could never be rid of them.

"Very well, then," Severus says, looking up at the boy, perched on his desk like some wayward animal. "Then to quote Albus once more, I shall ask a question of you: what do _you_ want to do?"

"Kill Death Eaters," Potter says immediately. He says it as if he has said it before, as if he has practised the answer in the mirror, perhaps – and maybe he has. Maybe he truly believes this is what he wants, what he needs to do.

"You do not want to kill Death Eaters," Severus says, very softly indeed, so softly that Potter cranes forwards on Severus' desk to hear him. "Potter, you don't know the first _thing_ about killing."

"What if I did?" Potter asks.

"What if you _did_? What do you mean? What if someone were to teach you?"

"No," Potter says. "What if I was already a murderer? What if it didn't matter that I might kill more people? You wouldn't have to worry about me being innocent, you know." He looks so old. It strikes Severus the more that he looks at the boy's strange, youthful features, so full as they are with adult purpose, and it is so much worse than Maxie Caine's powerless machinations, _so much worse_.

"My worry is not your innocence," Severus says. "The weight of someone else's soul against your own, a debt that you owe to the very _world_ for changing its balance… It is impossible to repay, much as you might try. Even killing only Death Eaters."

"All the Death Eaters have to die," Potter says. He doesn't look at Severus, but instead looks across the room, his eyes staring at, but not truly seeing, the contents of Severus' office bookshelf. His voice is full of grim purpose: Severus thinks of himself at Potter's age, so fascinated by the allure of the Death Eaters, the power they must wield with the Dark Lord to teach and command them. How wrong he had been… And what if Potter is wrong now?

"Their elimination hardly falls to you," Severus says.

"Then who _does_ it fall to? Albus won't do it." _Albus is probably thinking I will do it_ , Severus considers saying, but it would be cruel to do so – to both himself, and to Potter. Potter is looking at him, and he says again, "What if I did?"

"What if you—?"

"What if I killed someone?" This is a grim hypothetical. He is meant to be angrily interrogating the boy about _Lockhart_ , not listening to his teenage, desperate fantasies of murder. What is Severus supposed to say? What comfort or guidance can he possibly offer? He— "What if I killed Stan Shunpike?"

Severus freezes.

Potter's expression is completely serious: there is not even the barest hint of irony or dark humour in his tone or in his pale features, and Severus is very glad at this moment that he took the Liquid Sleep. He wouldn't lose his temper at this, even sleep deprived, but he certainly couldn't remain calm in the face of such a confession as this – and a confession it most certainly is.

"Let us see. If you would explain to me how such a _hypothetical_ situation might have arisen?" Severus speaks very delicately, leaning forwards in his seat. His fingers steeple themselves together in his lap, and Potter looks resolutely down at his own.

"Hypothetically, uh, I would've been walking home. I walked a lot around London this summer, on my own, and no one really stopped me… I know I shouldn't've, but I just needed the space. I'd been at someone else's house—"

"The Muggle boy?" Potter's eyes go abruptly wide, and he stares Severus in the face, as if it is completely unthinkable that Severus might have grasped so _simple_ a detail of the boy's private life – so private that he wears it on his sleeve. But perhaps Severus is being unfair: if Potter has kept a murder entirely secret, there may well be more complex issues hidden beneath that idiotic mess of dark curls.

"Yeah. So I was walking back from Adrian's, um, and I was on the bridge. Saw Stan, and he sort of… He said he was on the way to a meeting, and wouldn't _he_ be pleased? And I was like, who's _he_? And so Stan grabbed me, but I had a fag in my hand, so I burned him with it – he dropped his wand, and it rolled right into off the bridge and down into the Thames."

"Shunpike was stabbed," Severus says. There is a beat's worth of a pause, and then Potter reaches into robes, unbuckles a strap, and places a sheath on the desk. Severus takes the knife from its leather encasement, examining it: it is a six inch dagger, well-made, well-balanced. "Do you have other blades, Potter?" Potter hesitates, then slowly reaches into his satchel, removing another blade.

"You have to be careful," he says.

"I shall endeavour not to drive it through my own thigh," Severus says, and Potter shakes his head, his expression supremely grave.

"No, I mean… I killed the Basilisk with this. It's goblin-made: it imbibed the venom." Severus does not bother to control his expression: he lets his eyes widen as he stares at the boy, the _shock_ hitting him hard in the chest. So not only has the boy _killed_ a man, but he has been carrying a knife imbibed with one of the most corrosive—

It clicks into place.

"Rickard Mulciber died of heavy damage to his neck, caused by some manner of acid, we believed. Would I be correct in attributing his death to this knife of yours?" Potter nods. "Tell me the rest of Shunpike's story, first."

"I pulled out that knife and stabbed him." Potter stands awkwardly in front of Severus' desk for a second. "That's the rest of the story." Severus represses the urge to laugh: it would be tonally inappropriate, and would perhaps give Potter an overtly accurate representation of Severus' feelings on the subject of murdering Death Eaters.

"Very well: tell me what happened with Mulciber."

"Well, I went down into the village, and I was so… _Crap_. I never realized how crap I was, but I couldn't do anything – and I mean, I'm _okay_ in a duel, I suppose, but I didn't know any of the basic healing charms, and I couldn't even conjure a stretcher for Angelina Johnson. I couldn't do any of the magic that was actually _necessary_ … And then Mulciber, we were fighting – I lost my wand, and he was so big, he lifted me right off the ground and pinned me up against one of the walls. I stabbed him in the neck – my knife was the only thing I could reach." Potter breathes in, moving to sit down on Severus' desk once more, and then he says, very quietly, "He said I couldn't kill him. _You're Harry Potter,_ he said. _You can't_."

"What did you say in response to that?" Severus asks.

"I didn't say anything. I just stamped on his neck until he wasn't talking 't realize how much effect the venom would have at the time." The sheer brutality of it is difficult to imagine alongside Severus' image of Potter within his own mind: the boy is what Pomona might absently describe as "plucky", and Severus can easily imagine him in unlikely, but ultimately harmless scrapes, even having seen him in proper duels or under threat. The idea of the boy killing a grown man in cold blood, with knives, with magic, or even with his own hands (or feet, as the case may be), is entirely incongruous with the idea Severus has built up in his own head.

"Do you feel guilty?" Severus asks.

"No," Potter murmurs. Pressing his lips together, he seems to consider his question before he poses it: "Does that make me a bad person?"

"Perhaps," Severus says. "As much as Albus may disagree, morals are a matter of opinion. Do you believe it is justified to kill Death Eaters, if the end goal of defeating the Dark Lord is to be reached?"

"Yes," Potter says. "Have you ever killed a man?"

"Yes," Severus says.

A long silence spans between them. Potter does not look away from him, instead keeping his gaze directly on Severus' face, and under his scrutiny, Severus feels genuinely uncomfortable. What is it, he wonders, about Potter's gaze? It is not merely the guilt of Lily's death, which Severus knows himself to be responsible – there is such a deep intensity in it, so very focused, so full of emotion. Severus considers asking if Albus knows, but he knows immediately that Albus does not know – the boy is obviously a more accomplished Occlumens than Severus had given him credit for.

"Lucius said to me, a few days before he died," Potter begins. He stops. Opens his mouth: closes it again.

"If you are worried that I shall be _upset_ at the mention of my deceased friend, I might assure you I have a stronger constitution than you believe of me, Potter."

"It seems stupid."

"You have told me much stupider things tonight, I should wager."

"He said you say that I'm stupid a lot, but you don't really mean it. That I'm not stupid, that I just think I'm more important than I am. In the scheme of things, I mean. He said, um, "If you stop holding the world on your shoulders, it won't shatter," or something like that." Severus cannot quite parse out what precisely the boy is trying to engender in saying this, so he takes a moment to think over what has been said.

"I do not believe you to be stupid. Foolhardy, undoubtedly. Prone to unwise decisions; lacking strategy; your manner—"

"I don't need a laundry list of my character flaws right now," Potter interrupts him. "I need— I need _mentorship_. Lockhart, he was trying to… I don't know, he was high on mushrooms or something, and I think he was really trying to be a mentor, or whatever, but he's insane."

"You believe you require mentorship in the act of murder?"

"When you say it like that," Potter says, rather accusatively, "It sounds very stupid. But I just need— I don't think I can deal with this on my own, and I actually think it would probably be worse if I did, and you don't trust Albus."

"What does my relationship with Albus have to do with this?" Severus asks, immediately. "Do _you_ distrust him?" The thought alarms him, but Potter doesn't seem especially angry about Dumbledore's tendencies.

"No," Potter replies, shaking his head. "I just… Look, Albus is kind of thinking of me as a kid. And I know I am a kid, but I've also lost my ability to _be_ a kid. I kind of have to be more now. Madam Pomfrey is going to start teaching me some mediwizardry, and I'm going to start exercising, getting more fit, and I— Could you just teach me how to be less _shit_?"

"Potter, you are no more a "shit" wizard than the moon is made of pastry," Severus says tiredly. It occurs to Severus that this is the longest conversation he has ever had with any student, let alone Potter; this is probably the longest conversation he's had with somebody other than Albus in quite some time. "You are _fifteen_. You have yet to complete your O.W.L.s."

"But you could help me," Potter repeats. "You wouldn't tell Albus." _Wouldn't I_? _How many sides must I take in this war?_

"And in what way would this benefit me?" Severus asks, crossing his arms over his chest once more and leaning back in his seat. "Why, Potter, should I assist you?" Potter shrugs his shoulders, crossing his own arms over his chest and mimicking Severus' haughty look.

"I'll grade your first and second year essays." Severus laughs. It has long been his policy not to laugh in front of students, in case they _misunderstand_ the dynamic between Severus and the irritating children around him, but this is too good not to see the humour in: Severus' teeth are bared, and he is aware that he looks _savage_ when he laughs. There is something savage in the smile Potter has on his own face. "Shake on it?"

Severus' palm presses against Potter's, his own handshake firm, and he wonders if this is the greatest mistake he shall make of the year, or if things will get worse.

"I have more stuff I should tell you," Potter says. "About tonight. And about— Lockhart." Severus slowly nods his head: when Potter begins to talk, he listens intently. Severus is accustomed to listening when others speak, taking in what he can and analysing their every word, but there is very rarely an occasion when he is alone with another person who is speaking _only_ for himself to hear. The thought is strange, and Potter is so young, and yet not young.

But if Severus helps him, will he not have a better chance of surviving? _Undoubtedly_.

**ϟ** **~ THE LERNAEAN HYDRA ~** **ϟ**

Severus lies in his bed, on his back, his gaze upon the ceiling. Outside, the sky is beginning to lighten as the sun threatens to rise, and he knows he will only be able to snatch a few scant hours of sleep before he is forced to rise. The Liquid Sleep is beginning to wear off, now, and he feels the desperate need for rest settle into his very bones, his flesh, his skin, once more.

He thinks of what Potter had told him about his meeting with Lockhart – about how Lockhart had acted, how open he'd been. Lockhart, a student of divination… The thought is strange to Severus, and not at all a comforting one. Diviners are often dangerous: they can become _so confident_ about the future, whether they are good at the magic or not.

Where do his loyalties lie? He reports to the Dark Lord, but means it not; he reports to Albus Dumbledore, but feels shackled by his bonds; and now, Potter. He is not a leader, of course, but Severus is to keep his secrets, and to aid him in further deception – and why? Because there is no better alternative.

Were Albus to think of the boy as a murderer, even of Death Eaters… Severus shudders to think of how cold Albus might become. Even Potter ought not see that side of his Headmaster.

And then _Caine_ : had Severus really agreed to edit his war reports? Where will he have the time? Even if he makes Potter go through the first through _third_ year assignments, Severus will be in desperate need of a Time Turner, if only to sleep!

 _And Crouch,_ says a sneaky voice in the back of his mind, sultry and dark, _what will we do about him_?

Severus stares at his ceiling. "Fantôme," he says. His own voice sounds hoarse from lack of sleep and overuse. The cat appears beside him, steps neatly upon his chest, and digs her claws deeply into his flesh as she makes herself comfortable. She settles with her well-padded backside upon Severus' shoulder, her tail forming a sort of scarf beneath his chin, and her whiskers pressed ticklishly into his navel.

It is perhaps the most uncomfortable position she has ever chosen to lie in, and with the weight of her body and the softness of her fur as a blanket, he is asleep within moments.

Bartemius Crouch follows him even in his dreams.


	123. The Running Thread

Harry's arms ache. He can feel the muscles in his shoulders and his upper arms eke out vague protest even though he's now sitting completely still in his chair, and every now and then an infinitesimal will make a warm pain ache through the tired muscle. Harry doesn't like push-ups. He fucking _hates_ push-ups.

"Prefect Potter, you take the patrol on the Astronomy corridor." Harry glances up, rather surprised. The patrol on the Astronomy corridor, he knows, is usually left to seventh year prefects – students will often be irritated if caught by a prefect, as the Astronomy Tower is a perfect place for a snog or something more. Harry knows of several prefects being hexed in the moment of being caught, either out of petty revenge or because someone was shocked by the interruption and acted instinctively. Simpson's trying to keep her face calm, but Harry can see her hand is tightly interlocked with that of Hadley Wessex – her boyfriend, and the Head Boy.

"Really? Me? A fifth year?" Harry grins, showing his teeth. There's a sudden, tense silence in the room as everyone considers what Harry might be about to say.

"You think you can't handle a s-stray hex?" Simpson says. Her upper lip is quivering – how they could _possibly_ have picked her as Head Girl, he really can't conceive of. Maybe by the end of the year, she'll be halfway to leadership.

"But that's not the point, is it, Prefect Simpson?" Leaning forwards, Harry puts his chin upon his folded hands. He feels a sort of savagery within himself, just under the surface, _itching_ to get out at such a minor provocation. "I'm only a _fifth_ year, and you've given me a seventh year patrol. That either means you admire my skill – which I doubt, as you've never seen me in a duel – or that this is a punishment for ignoring your—" Harry delicately clears his throat. "— _authority_ on the Hogwarts Express." Silence reigns.

"What the Hell is that supposed to mean?" Wessex says: he gets to his feet. Hadley Wessex is a Hufflepuff with eyes like mercury and an accent so posh it sounds like he has Galleons stuffed between his lips. "What sort of accusation are you making?"

"Oh, was it _your_ idea?" Harry pulls an exaggerated frown. "That's such a shame. For a second, Prefect Simpson, I was really rooting for you."

"Control your man!" Wessex says, turning to Hannah Graydon. Graydon, who has a face that's been bashed a few too many times by Bludgers, raises her abused eyebrows.

"Control him? Why? What he's saying is true, isn't it? We've never given that patrol to anyone less than a sixth year, even when we're down _six_ prefects, let alone down two." Harry glances around the prefects' table – a lot of them look uncomfortable or just plain uncertain. Ron looks vaguely constipated; Hermione looks furious, but it seems like she's holding herself back from saying anything, likely because she feels it will be too swear-y for mixed company. Cho Chang's lips are pressed tightly together, and he imagines she's wishing Cedric was here. "He doesn't care if you're trying to punish him, but you might as well admit to it."

"We're not punishing anybody," Simpson says. She has to concentrate not to stutter. "We're just— Well, Prefect Potter is competent. You're the top of your Defence class, aren't you?"

"Why are Gryffindors like this?" Harry asks, loudly, directing the question to Tracey Davis, Hannah Graydon and the only other Slytherin prefect there: Guy Sanderson. For obvious reasons, Rebekah Amstell hasn't yet returned to Hogwarts, and Harry isn't certain if Abraham Hamish will be replaced as prefect. "They come up with a plan they obviously think is very clever, despite being rather heavy-handed, and then they won't admit to it. No wonder these people don't become politicians." Sanderson and Davis laugh; Graydon sniggers. A few of the Ravenclaws have to hold back their own chuckles, although Harry is now receiving glares from every Hufflepuff in the room, and Simpson's pretty features have turned red.

"I'll take the patrol," Harry says, standing from his seat.

"The meeting is _not_ over!" Simpson snaps, and she actually stamps her foot.

"It is for me!" Harry calls over his shoulder, and he kicks the door shut behind him as he stalks down the corridor, his cloak thrown loosely over his shoulder. It is early afternoon, and in twenty minutes, he has his last class of the week (barring Astronomy tomorrow night) – Gideon Gibbon for Defence Against the Dark Arts.

Thus far, his classes this week have been… Hard. OWL classes have been promised to him as much more challenging than anything he'd have done before, and even with the reading he'd done over the summer, the promises have shown to be completely true. The magical theory is much more complex than anything he's faced before, and every new piece of theory has accompanying philosophy and ethics they need to comprehend as well. The exams are going to be _horrible_ , he knows already.

Potions is the only class he's felt on board with thus far, and that's only because he's practised a few of the potions at home – as for the theory? He worries he's never going to be able to wrap his head around it.

And this is just _OWL_ stuff – he'll need much higher grade magic if he wants to actually survive this war, if he actually wants to go head to head with Voldemort. Why did it have to happen like this? Why couldn't someone just take him away to some secret room and give him a time turner, let him have a decade to prepare rather than this desperate urgency?

"Why aren't you in the Prefects weekly meeting?" Snape actually looks _casual_. Leaning one shoulder on the frame of his office door, his arms crossed over his chest and one eyebrow raised, he looks like a completely normal person – just for a second.

"Hello, Professor Snape," Harry says mildly. "Would you believe we finished early?" This year, the Slytherins had drawn the long straw, and subsequently, the Prefect meeting room is down in the dungeons, only two corridors away from Snape's office.

"Inside."

**ϟ** **~ THE LERNAEAN HYDRA ~** **ϟ**

"And then I just left," Harry finishes.

"Simpson is _undoubtedly_ going to lodge a complaint about you," Snape says dryly. He doesn't seem too upset about it, though.

"We're already down two Slytherin prefects. It's not like she's in a position to get me kicked off."

"You're quite correct," Snape agrees. Harry sits in the hard-backed chair across from his desk, but Snape remains standing, pacing the room with his arms still crossed. He's thinking deeply about something, it seems to Harry, and he knows better than to ask what it might be.

"Are you going to replace Abraham?" Harry asks. Snape glances at him. "Not right away! I don't mean that – I just meant like, what's the protocol for something like this?"

"Prefects have died before," Snape says quietly. "Ordinarily, the faculty wait for the end of the term, and then assign a new prefect in the next one, if still required. In this case, however… Perhaps Albus will elect to waive that usual delay and appoint a new Seventh Year prefect during the half term. It depends if Ms Amstell resumes her post."

"You think she'd quit?" Harry asks. Snape's eyebrows furrow slightly, and the distant look in his eyes deepens. "You don't think she's going to come back to Hogwarts at all."

"Ms Amstell could easily complete her NEWTs on private study," Snape murmurs. He speaks very quietly, but in the absolute silence of his office, Harry only has to strain a little to hear him. "You will not find it in your textbooks, Potter, but this is how it begins. A few individuals drop away from their classes, perhaps change to another school – Eala Dubh, or Beauxbatons. Businesses may begin to close in Diagon Alley, particularly those that might have had a difficult quarter in the current climate. Fewer people, for example, are going out to play Quidditch in these trying times."

Harry watches the older man carefully: Snape is using his teaching voice, the voice he ordinarily uses for extended lectures on a particular element of potions preparation or usage. It doesn't feel fake at all, though, but almost hypnotizing – Snape has a way of presenting information in ways that's easy to listen to, even if it's a complex concept. Sometimes, Harry wishes Potions involved a few more theory lectures, and a little less practical work.

"And people leave the country, right?" Harry asks. "I heard the towns like Godric's Hollow, Ottery St. Catchpole – they used to have a lot more wizards and witches. But loads of them left."

"The majority were killed," Snape says. As he says it, he looks directly at Harry, meeting his eyes. A silence passes between them.

"Are you looking for me to flinch?" Harry asks. "I know people died, sir. My parents were some of the victims." Snape watches him for a few moments more, studying Harry's face as if he's a complicated experiment, or perhaps a dense passage in a book.

"You have a class on the hour, do you not? You ought make your way there. After dinner this evening, return here. We shall begin your… Mentorship."

"What do I say it's about?" Harry asks, pulling himself up out of the chair and shouldering his bag. His prefect badge shines in the soft light of Snape's office, and Harry looks down at it for a moment. Is it worth it? Is it worth the hassle from Simpson and Wessex? What does he want to be a prefect for anyway?

Snape artfully shrugs his shoulders. When he waves his hand in a gesture that strikes Harry as airy and strangely familiar, the position of his hand and wrist slightly mismatched with Snape's general demeanour, he seems just as aware of the misstep as Harry himself. He freezes in place, his expression remaining completely blank, but were he someone else, someone without so much self-discipline, maybe his lips would part, maybe his brow would furrow.

"It is your decision, Mr Potter." Harry thinks about asking what exactly Snape is thinking, who that wrist flick reminded him of, but he keeps his tongue still.

"See you after dinner," Harry says, and he leaves the room. He has to take a few shortcuts up to Gideon Gibbon's classroom, but he makes it within time – there are two or three minutes before the current classes will let out, and although all of his fellow fifth years ought have a free period, he doesn't see any of them in the corridor yet. On a stone bench carved with the Hogwarts insignia, he sees an abandoned copy of the _Daily Prophet_.

 **TODAY: YOU-KNOW-WHO'S INTERNMENT OR DECLARATION OF STATE OF EMERGENCY** , declares the headline. It isn't exactly _catchy_ , but Harry supposes there are only so many news stories that can be boiled down to a snappy title page. He glances over the first paragraph – the Ministry of Magic is going to declare their decision at 7:30 tonight. Everyone will still be at dinner…

"What the Hell was _that_ , mate?" Ron Weasley asks. Hermione comes rushing up behind him, her lips pressed together, her eyes focused on Harry. "She was uh, Hermione what did you call it? Apocalyptic?"

"Apoplectic," Hermione supplies. "Absolutely _furious_ , but um, well. Whenever she tried to talk, she just began to stammer."

"My two main nemeses this year," Harry mutters, half-under his breath. "Lord Voldemort and Patricia Simpson, Hogwarts Head Girl."

"Are you quite ready to enter the classroom?" asks Gibbon from behind them, the door abruptly open. His tone icy, he glares between Ron and Hermione, and adds, "Or are you going to stand about in the corridors, procrastinating your lesson time?"

"It's five to, Professor Gibbon," Harry says quietly. "No one else is here yet." This seems to strike the older man hard, his lips pressing tightly together, his eyes full of fury too-soon doused.

" _Inside_ ," Gibbon barks, and he whirls on his feet, making his way into the classroom. Glancing to Ron and Hermione, who look about as perplexed as Harry does, they make their way inside. Harry sits at the very front of the class, removing his textbook and a notebook from his bag and setting them on the desk; Hermione sits beside him. In true Ron fashion, Ron takes a seat at the very back of the class, as close to the door as possible, and when Seamus and Dean come in, they sit beside him. Gibbon is writing rapidly on a wide blackboard with a piece of chalk, and Harry watches him murmur under his breath. Hovering beside him is a leather journal, a dictaquill quickly moving over the page in a quick, looping scrawl. At this angle, and from so far away, he can neither hear what Gibbon is saying nor read the notes, and he feels curiosity flare inside him.

Gibbon is a portly man, tall with broad shoulders, and he has thick, blond hair that is beginning to recede on the very top of his head. His face is quite red, particularly his cheeks, but it isn't from anger – he has a naturally flushed pallor to him, and Harry would guess he's simply thin-skinned. He looks to be in his fifties (though who can really tell, with wizards?) but his robes are tailored in an old-fashioned style, with a white cravat thick about his neck, prominently white cuffs, and even _spats_ that show when he takes a quick step forwards and the skirt of his robe shifts and displays his shoes.

Tracey Davis is the last to enter the room, and she does a quick glance over the others before pulling the door shut and taking a seat beside Pansy. Harry doesn't know what it is – perhaps the Slytherins take note of what Harry is doing, and then the Gryffindors do the same, or maybe the charged energy in the room isn't something he's imagining, but is something they all feel. Either way, everybody sits in absolute silence, the only sounds Gibbon's soft murmurings, the quiet grind of chalk on chalkboard, and the scratch of his quill on parchment.

Taking a pause to underline his name with a dramatic movement, Gibbon turns to face the silent room, and he steps out of the way of the blackboard. Harry looks at the board's dark-green surface, reading what Gibbon has written in chalk capitals, and he begins to note it down.

 **PROFESSOR G. GIBBON**

 **TERM ONE SYLLABUS:**

· **PRACTICAL JINXES & MINOR HEXES**

· **COUNTER-JINXES AND DEFENSIVE CHARMS**

· **MAJOR HEXES (THEORY)**

· **SHIELD CHARMS (THEORY, HISTORY, PRACTICE)**

 **TERM TWO SYLLABUS:**

· **THE PHILOSOPHY OF INTENT**

· **CURSES & THEIR HISTORY**

o **LYCANTHROPY & VAMPIRISM**

o **DAY-TO-DAY CURSES**

· **CURSE REVERSAL**

· **MINOR CURSES (PRACTICAL)**

· **MAJOR CURSES (THEORY, PRACTICAL)**

As everyone begins to take notes, Gibbon walks into the room, making his way slowly down the rows, glancing over each of their shoulders. "For twenty three years," he says, "I have worked in the Ministry Office for the Removal of Jinxes, Hexes and Curses. For ten years, I was the director of the department. I actually planned to retire this year, but you know how convincing your headmaster can be." When he faces the class, giving a warm smile, a few people laugh. The coldness Harry had seen in the other man a moment ago has completely evaporated – and what had been the _problem_ , anyway?

Had it been that he'd said Voldemort's name? That he'd been so flippant? That _must_ have been it, and yet Gibbon now seems so charming, and so calm. What is Gibbon's _game_? His posh, clipped tones ring through the room, and Harry watches him carefully.

"Who here can define Dark Magic for me?" Harry hears a few robes rustle as hands go up – Hermione's shoots up, as does Draco's, Pansy's… And Vincent Crabbe's. Even Gibbon seems surprised by this.

"Mr Crabbe, isn't it? Tell us."

"If it's made to hurt people, and isn't for anything else, it's dark," he says quietly, but not so quietly it's hard to understand him. "If the spell is made just to hurt people, or kill 'em, that's dark." Gibbon gives a slow nod of his head. On his desk, behind him, Harry can see his quill making a few notes.

"And the Dark Arts… Are they inherently wrong? Mr… I'm sorry, your name?"

"Dean Thomas, Professor Gibbon."

"Mr Thomas!"

"It depends on how you use them. Like Crabbe said, it's kind of about intent – if you used the Dark Arts just to hurt people, most would say that's wrong, but if you're using them for something else, there's no moral problem." Gibbon gives a slow nod of his head, his hands in his pockets as he stands straight.

"Can you give me an example, Mr Thomas?" Gibbon asks. Dean pauses for a second.

"Uh, for example, the Reductor curse – we learned it in third year. You could use it to hurt people, or you could use it in a construction job, or in demolition. There's no dark intent there at all."

"And yet it's classified as a curse – why is that? Ms…?"

"Granger, sir," Hermione says. She's bouncing in her seat, leaning right forwards to give her answer. " _Reducto_ , from the Latin, means _"_ reduce", or "bring down". While it can be used innocently, it's best designed for harm, because of how powerful it can be without putting too much energy into it."

"And if I use a simple levitation charm, say, to drop somebody off a cliff… Would that be Dark Magic?" Harry can't help but roll his eyes, and Gibbon's gaze lands on him, intent. "You find that funny, Mr Potter?"

"It's just that it's an old idea," Harry says. "A cliché. I hear that question asked a hundred times a week by second and third years." In how many letters from Lucius, Harry wonders, had the man outlined the difference between Dark Magic and the rest? In how many letters from Molly, or Augusta, or Andromeda, had he been lectured about the importance of magical intent? "Of course that's not _Dark Magic_. Dark Magic is magic that was _created_ with a particular purpose in mind, and that purpose being to maim or to kill. It doesn't mean that the spells in question can't be used to good intent – it's about their original creation. Having a blanket taboo on Dark Magic eliminates the bulk of those spells' use, but if you're creative enough, any piece of magic can be put to any purpose."

" _Any_ piece of magic for _any_ purpose, you say?" Gibbon asks. He raises his eyebrows, letting out a soft whistle of sound. "Not something I often hear from young men, and not something I'd expect from you, Mr Potter. What about the Unforgiveables? You think they could be used to good purpose?"

"Sure," Harry says. "But it doesn't mean they should be legalized – they're called the Unforgiveables because of what they're primarily intended for, and they should be kept criminal."

"Oh, forgive me," Gibbon murmurs. "But I'm so _curious_. What, good purpose, pray, do you think the Imperius Curse might be put to?"

"Someone's about to throw themselves from the Astronomy Tower," Harry says. "Using the Imperius Curse, I force them to step back from the edge, and then I call for help." Gibbon's eyes narrow slightly, and Harry regrets sitting at the front of the class – he can feel the stares of every one of his classmates boring into his back.

"And the Cruciatus? What _good deed_ can a curse intended only to torture be used for?"

"The Cruciatus Curse can cause permanent nerve damage, burst blood vessels and even cause aneurysms in its victims," Harry says. He thinks of Neville Longbottom, sat in the desk behind him, and he presses his lips together for a moment before he says, "The only way Healers can _help_ the victims of these curses, I'm afraid, is to study them. I'd bet you a Galleon there's a department dedicated to their study in the Department of Mysteries if any of us could ever prove it."

"And what of the last?" Gibbon asks in a whisper. He seems almost hypnotized, his gaze locked with Harry's, as if he's forgotten there are other students in the room. "You just told me, Mr Potter, that you would use the Imperius Curse to pull someone from the brink of suicide – so what possible justification could there be for the Killing Curse?"

"There are two answers I could give to that, Professor Gibbon," Harry says. He thinks of the Ministry announcement to come tonight, and Abraham Hamish, Madam Rosmerta… Lucius Malfoy. "I'll give the one people expect, first. If killing somebody does the rest of the world a net good – if that person is evil, and odious, and murderous, and brings only harm into the world, then I guess it would be justifiable to use the Killing Curse on them. On Lord V—"

"He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named," Gibbon corrects, sharply.

"For example," Harry continues, refusing to use the stupid epithet, "He'd be a pretty worthy candidate."

"And the second answer?" Gibbon asks. His eyes are a watery brown, like the muddy mist that dredges up when you step through a pond. Harry's mouth is dry from talking, and he wishes he carried a flask of water in his bag like some of the other boys do, from class to class.

"If someone's going to die anyway," Harry starts. He says it a little quietly, not able to convince himself to speak any louder. "If— If you were prisoners, for example, and you knew all you had to look forward to was torture – if the other person was bleeding, wheezing through cracked ribs, and you couldn't escape, you couldn't help them any other way… It doesn't hurt, you know. It's very quick, but you feel warmth where the spell hits, and a little tingling… It doesn't hurt. If I had to die again, that's how I'd choose to go." He's never been in a room so utterly silent. He can't even hear anyone breathing, or hear the rustle of robes – even in Snape's most frigid classrooms, you can hear the crackle of fire beneath the cauldrons, the bubble of potions or the _snikt_ of a knife through ingredients. Even Gibbon's dictaquill has taken a break.

"Mr Potter makes an excellent few points," Gibbon says suddenly: the spell is broken. Suddenly, Harry can hear people breathing, hear people shifting in their seats or moving their books around. "Whether you agree with him on the individual elements is unimportant – the fact is that he can create arguments to _justify_ the use of the darkest spells known to us as wizards and witches. The Dark Arts, you see, is a misleading title, and as Mr Potter has wisely pointed out, primarily a legal one intended to steer students in the correct direction…" Gibbon keeps talking, and Harry looks back to his notebook, taking down everything the professor says. It's easier, somehow, to focus on taking the class down in writing, and lets him escape thinking about the implications in detail until later.

**ϟ** **~ THE LERNAEAN HYDRA ~** **ϟ**

When the class comes to an end, Harry feels relief. He stands up, packing away his books and his notes, which are written in a journal with a charm for drying ink – no blotting. What a luxury. There isn't the usual chatter as everyone gets up to leave – the Gryffindors and Slytherins alike are quietly pensive, thinking over what Gibbon had talked about.

It had primarily been an introduction to the philosophical theory surrounding Defence Against The Dark Arts, with Gibbon mostly lecturing them and occasionally getting someone to answer a few questions.

Harry is aware of some of the others staring at him; Neville gives him a wide berth, and Theodore looks directly at him, his expression a mix of what could be disagreement, and maybe… Pity?

Looking down at the spine of his journal, Harry takes up his bag by the strap and pulls it over his shoulder. Outside the window, it's cloudy and grey, and Harry breathes in slowly – there are a few hours to go until dinner, and this is his last class of the day.

In the quiet of the moment, he feels the slight ache in his arms, reminded of it by the weight of the bag… He has a few hours. He could go for a jog, maybe, like Lucius had suggested once upon a time…

"Potter?" Harry looks up. Gibbon is watching him, his expression showing a little concern. "Are you alright?"

"Oh, fine, sir. Just thinking." Gibbon gives a slow nod of his head, seeming to approve.

"You've a lot to face this year… I was going to ask if you'd like any extra tutelage in Defence. I would have to put aside the hours, but—"

"Oh, thanks, Professor Gibbon," Harry says, already shaking his head apologetically. He needs an excuse, something— "I'm actually studying with my godfather already. I'll come to you if I need any help, but I wouldn't want you to put aside your time for me!" He smiles, politely, and before Gibbon can say anything more, he leaves the classroom and makes his way swiftly down to the dungeons.

The Common Room isn't busy – most of the years have classes at this time – and Harry moves through easily, dropping his bag at the foot of his bed and rummaging through his wardrobe for his trainers and a light robe intended for exercise.

"Harry," comes a voice from behind him, and Harry turns. Draco is frowning at him from the doorway, and Harry frowns back, standing up and looking at the other boy. "The— What you said about the Killing Curse… It was so… _Specific_. You don't really think…?"

Sighing, Harry takes a step across the room, reaching for the folder of his and Lucius' letters. He has to page through the letters, but then he settles on a particular one, and glances over the flowing script. It was one of the rare letters signed from Lucius alone, without mention of Narcissa.

" _Think, Harry, always of context. No morality is universal to every man, and even our stoutest morals might be challenged in a particular situation._

 _When I was your age, a friend of my father's, a Mr Wessex, told me a story. I was as yet young, just out of school, and we had begun a discussion about the Dark Arts and their classification. He had been stationed somewhere abroad (I know not where, for he never let it slip) and was made a prisoner of war. Having pilfered a wand from the guard, but under a heavy Apparition ward, it was crucial he make his escape._

 _Another wizard was locked in the very same dungeon as he. The other wizard, having been kept prisoner for several months (whereas this fellow had been captured only that week) had endured extensive tortures. Several of his ribs were cracked, and he was missing many of his fingernails; his kneecaps had been shattered, and he lay wheezing on a straw bed, barely able to so much as drink. One of his eyes had been removed, and the other was cloudy with blood._

 _"_ _I can heal you," Wessex said to him. "Then together, we—"_

 _"_ _No," groaned the poor soul, between tortured breaths. "You aren't a healer: with me slowing your retreat, you shall never escape. Leave me here, only…"_

 _"_ _Only?"_

 _"_ _Do not leave me alive." For several days and nights, Wessex was tortured by the very thought. Could he kill a man? He was an intelligence agent, and had only ever been in practice duels – he had never seen battle, and never even seen an animal die, let alone a person. "Use the killing curse," the man whispered in the dark, through cracked teeth and a bloodied tongue. "It will be quick."_

 _On the third night, they took the man for "questioning" once more. Wessex heard his cries, his begging for mercy, become less and less comprehensible, until he heard only frantic gurgling through blood, and then the fellow was deposited once more in the cold cellar, quite unconscious. What information he had, Wessex desperately wished to know, but the fellow was unconscious and the guard was lax – this was his chance to escape, he thought, as he stood over the man with his wand in hand._

 _That very evening, under the moonlit sky, he stole from the dungeon and fled into the hills, making it home within a week or so. He gave word of the other prisoner, but no one knew who he might be._

 _"_ _And the poor fellow," I asked him, when he related the tale. "Do you know what they did when they discovered him dead?"_

 _"_ _They didn't," Wessex whispered to me. Never had I seen a man's face tell of such regret. "I couldn't do it. I shudder to think of it, at times, Mr Malfoy. The guilt eats away at me when I try to sleep sometimes. The guilt eats and eats."_

 _Again, I reiterate. Much as we might wish it otherwise, our morality is an everchanging beast, changing from one situation to the next. Take care, Harry, that you do not follow absolutism to your doom: showing mercy sometimes means to let a fellow die._ "

Harry finishes reading that section of the letter, which had been prompted by a discussion about a man who had been prosecuted in a manslaughter case some years back. Draco stands in the middle of the room, and a little colour seems to have returned to his face, where before he was extraordinarily pale.

"Not a personal example or anything," Harry murmurs. "Just something Lucius said that stuck with me."

"I didn't mean to accuse you," Draco says. He sighs, putting his hand up to his forehead and rubbing over his hair. "Or— Anything else. It merely seemed so vivid, so _visceral_ … Of course you'd have no reason to get into such a situation." Harry says nothing to that, and sets the letter down, beginning to change into his exercise robes. "With the announcement to come tonight, I suppose I just feel a pressing anxiety."

"Declaring a state of emergency is the first step," Harry says quietly, pulling his robes on over his head. "Everything will be better with this."

"You're sure?" Draco asks.

"Not in the least." Draco chuckles. "Where are you going?"

"Just for a jog," Harry answers, leaning down and unfastening his dragonhide boots, exchanging them instead for his trainers. Draco nods his head, reaching for a book from the shelf – Harry feels the barest hint of relief that he doesn't reach immediately for the letters. There's no sense in Draco forming some kind of obsession. "You want to come?"

"No, I watched you performing your morning exercises, and that's all about I can stomach to witness," Draco says dryly.

"I'll get better at it!" Harry says, a little defensively. "I'd like to see you do a push-up!"

Setting the book down on the bed, Draco gets slowly to his knees, putting his hands flat on the ground. Rather than stretching out his body to do a push-up, he throws his weight forwards and, balancing carefully on his hands, performs a perfect handstand that he holds for a long few seconds, his robes bunching about his crotch rather than falling down and revealing all.

"That's not a push-up," Harry mutters, and Draco laughs, standing back up. "How did you get into that, anyway? Gymnastics?"

"Mother does gymnastics," Draco says. He says it with a soft smile on his face, looking off into the distance. "See you later, Harry."

"See you," Harry murmurs, and he takes off for his jog.


	124. Year Five: The Taste Of Magic

Harry's soles pound hard against the wet, mulchy ground, and Harry feels the slight burn in the back of his throat, the beat of his heart, and the twinge of his thighs and calves as they work. He thinks of Gideon Gibbon – _maybe_ a Death Eater, maybe not – and how cold he is, and yet how charming. He'd been at such ease in the classroom.

And maybe Harry shouldn't have answered so freely. Maybe he should have held back. The way Neville Longbottom had looked at him… Had what he'd said been so bad, been so wrong?

 _"No morality is universal_ ," Lucius had said, but what the Hell is that supposed to mean? Lucius was a Death Eater himself. What was he meant to know about morality? What is Harry meant to know? He's a murderer. Gritting his teeth, he raises his chin and straightens his back a little, trying his best to improve his stance as the diagrams had displayed. He imagines Lucius in front of him, imagines what he'd say.

"Is this where we are, now? Making imaginary friends of dead men?" Lucius stands in Harry's mind's eye with his arms crossed over his chest, one of his eyebrows artfully raised. _These are difficult times_ , Harry would say, if this was real. _Are you gonna begrudge me some imaginary friends_? Lucius smiles. Thinking about it makes something twist in his belly, a sudden burst of guilt and stabbing regret. "Oh, _stop_ that," Lucius says. Raising his hand and airily waving it to the side, he says, "There's no point in _wailing_ over it."

Harry slips on a wet patch of dirt, and he curses as he lands hard in the mulch and the wetness, feeling mud cake his thighs and arse, spattering over his arms. He grunts, pulling himself to his feet, and he comes to the bank of the lake, dropping his outer robe to the side and diving into the water.

It's freezing, and he feels it bite against his flesh as he drags his nails over the mud caking his skin, pulling its brown stickiness away from him. His eyes are still sensitive and slightly raw, and Harry comes to the beach once more, taking up his robe and washing it in the water, just enough to pull the mud away from the cloth. Muttering a quiet spell, he sees steam rise from the robe itself, but he doesn't put it on just yet, instead sitting down on a cool stone and feeling the mildness of the sun on his shoulders, letting himself dry out naturally in the sun.

"Y'alright there, Harry?" comes a voice from behind him, and Harry turns to look at Hagrid as he comes over, Fang at his side. The dog dashes forward, pressing his snout against Harry's knees and his hands, and Harry feels himself smile as he drags his fingernails over the dog's fur, feeling him slobber and whine with delight.

"Yeah, Hagrid, I'm fine," Harry says quietly. "Trying to get some exercise, but I slipped in the mud."

"Exercise? What for?"

"Lucius always said—" Something changes in Hagrid's face, a darkening of his features, and Harry feels a burst of guilt in the lower part of his belly, feels himself lean back slightly on the rock. Of course Hagrid wouldn't look favourably on Malfoy Senior – the man had been a _monster_ to people like Hagrid all his life, and yet… "I need to be more physically fit, and stronger. It's about discipline. We're not all as strong as you are, you know, Hagrid?" Hagrid smiles, a little bit weakly, awkwardly. He stands with his hands loosely clasped in front of his belly, and Harry slowly gets to his feet, moving closer with Fang at his side. "I didn't get the chance to say, but I'm sorry about Madame Rosmerta. You knew her really well, right?"

"She was a good lass," Hagrid says quietly, his hands loosely in his pockets, and Harry walks alongside him as they meander in the direction of Hagrid's hut. Harry's wet under robe clings uncomfortably to his skin, but he doesn't pay it any heed, pushing his damp hair back from his face and patting Fang's flank as they move. "Never had a bad word to say about nobody. I remember when she first came to Hogwarts – her and Poppy, you know, they was as thick as thieves. Always playing about together, learning new spells, dancing…" Hagrid's massive hand pats gently ( _for Hagrid, anyway, it winds Harry slightly)_ against Harry's shoulders, and he says, "Thank you, Harry. Means a lot."

Harry leans against the fence around Hagrid's yard, looking out over the green shrubs that are sprouting up from the ground – Hagrid's pumpkin plants, preparing to bear fruit for the end of October.

"You ready for the declaration tonight?" Harry asks quietly, and Hagrid sighs, patting back his mane of thick, dark hair. He opens the hut door so that Fang can throw himself up into the house, and he sits heavily down on the stone steps – Harry hears their quiet groan of protest at his weight.

"I don't know what it'll change, if I'm honest, Harry," Hagrid says resignedly. "Other than everything, o'course." Harry nods, hanging his robe against the fence, and he pulls himself up onto the wood frame, settling down to sit in place. "Depends on if You-Know-Who, if he… If he does anything."

He'll do something. Harry is certain of that – even if Voldemort doesn't appear in public anywhere, there'll be some kind of response to the state of things, some kind of explosion or big event… Or maybe there won't be. Maybe Voldemort will let the dread build, let people really grow to live in fear as the Ministry of Magic confirms he's a threat, without confirming it himself.

"You want a cuppa tea there, Harry?"

"Yeah, Hagrid," Harry murmurs. "Yeah, I'd love that, thanks."

**ϟ** **~ THE LERNAEAN HYDRA ~** **ϟ**

It is toward the end of dinner that the owl comes into the room. Beating its mighty, broad wings, it comes forward and drops its pink envelope into Albus' hand. Harry is not the only person anxiously looking up toward the staff table as Albus' ancient blue eyes survey the text, his expression unchanging. As the finished dessert plates vanish, leaving people with just their drinks and a few hangers-on who eat more slowly than the others, an uncomfortably tense silence begins to gather in the air, charging it like air pressure builds up before a storm.

With an apparent moment of hesitant reluctance, Albus stands from his place at the table, holding the pink parchment in his left hand as he moves toward his mahogany lectern. Harry's gaze flits to Snape, whose hands are loosely interlinked in front of him; to Pomfrey, who is nervously tapping her carefully-maintained fingernails against the wood of the table; to McGonagall, whose thin lips are drawn into a tight, taut line.

"Here, children, I bring to you this missive from the Ministry of Magic," Albus says, his voice carrying around the room and cutting through the desperate tension, the uncertainty.

" _From the desk of the Minister for Magic, Cornelius Fudge. It is with great regret that I should send out this message, but needs must. I hereby declare that unless He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, the known dark wizard responsible for the many deaths in the First Wizarding War, turns in his wand and his surrender to this office before midnight this evening, the Ministry of Magic will enter a State of Emergency._

 _"Failing special allowance from the Department of Magical Transportation, international Floos will hereby be suspended. Failing special allowance from the Department of Magical Transportation, international Apparition and Portkey usage will hereby be suspended. Failing special allowance from the Department of Magical Transportation, magical transport by boat, horse or fast-train will hereby be suspended. The sport known as Muggle-baiting – punishable by a minimum of one year in the prison Azkaban, will hereby be punished by a minimum of ten years. Assaults, battery or public breaches of the peace intended to incite fear that are linked to the terrorist group known as the "Death Eaters" will carry the punishment of the Dementor's Kiss."_

Gasps sound through the room, and even Harry leans forward in his seat, surprised. Albus continues.

 _"Any individual found to be carrying the tattoo known as the Dark Mark on his left arm, diagrammed here as a snake through a skull, will be given the penalty of the Dementor's Kiss. Any individual found to cast the spell that creates an insignia of the Dark Mark in the sky or on the ground will be given the Dementor's Kiss. Any individual whose behaviours have been noted as suspicious, perhaps in connection with the terrorist group known as the "Death Eaters," will be remanded in custody of the state, under threat of the Dementor's Kiss. At borders and checks throughout the country, citizens must submit to having their left arms checked for this mark, and to have their possessions searched; checks may also be instituted at random on wizarding streets or in wizarding establishments. Any citizen that resists these checks will be remanded in the custody of the state._

 _"To He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, know this. We, the magical peoples of Britain, made up of England, Wales and Scotland, as well as surrounding islands, will not bow to your secondary attempt at a reign of terror. The magical peoples of Britain are strong, and just, and noble, and we shall defy you at every turn. You would do well to place yourself under our remand before midnight tonight, or face the full weight of the British magical state upon your shoulders. Your followers will be sent to the Kiss, your properties will be destroyed, and we shall see you put to death at the will of the British people._

 _"To the citizens of magical Britain, fear not. We shall not bend, we shall not break, and we shall not weaken in the face of this adversity. The Dark Lord was defeated once, and so he shall be defeated a second time, and dashed in ashes to the annals of history._

 _"Yours, in loyal service to you, my citizens,  
Cornelius Fudge,  
Minister for Magic."_

The silence in the room is so thick that one could cut it with a knife. Harry sits in his place at the dinner table, his chin pressed against his hands, and he stares into the ether as he thinks through the speech he's just heard, the statement Fudge had released, in absolute shock. Around him, the other Slytherins are equally still and quiet, their eyes wide, their lips parted; even Crabbe and Goyle have an active light of comprehension and _horror_ in their eyes, and cannot quite slip into their usual, gormless state.

The right to free travel – suspended. And there's one line, one line that clings thick to the sides of Harry's skull even as it bounces around his head – _Any individual whose behaviours have been noted as suspicious_ …

That could mean anyone, doing anything. That gives the Aurors free reign to remand almost _anybody_ in custody… And what then?

"Jesus Christ," whispers Tracey Davies.

"And then some," Draco whispers back.

Looking up to the podium, Harry can see Albus' conflicted expression, see the sad way he looks out over the crowd of terrified children and teenagers, everybody utterly silent, and most of all Harry feels for the First Years, some of them just months into the wizarding world as a whole, and to see it like this… It's more than a shame. It's a damned tragedy.

And who has caused this, but Voldemort himself?

"You are dismissed," Albus says, waving one hand. "Each of you may return to your dormitories." Harry stands up, calling for the First Years to follow him and to step into an orderly line, and he leads them out before the rest of the Slytherins can follow suit, bringing them down the stairs and toward the Slytherin common room. Normally, First Years are brightly chattering after dinner is through, asking one another questions or posing questions to the Prefects beside them… But not now. All these children have grown up in the wizarding world, and every single one of them looks frightened and uncertain. Harry glances to the back of the group, where Theo Nott is herding the children from the other side, despite the lack of a badge shining on his breast.

" _Pro—"_ Harry stops for just a second, feeling the words like dust in his mouth, and he wonders for a second if Snape had chosen them just to scorn him. " _Pro patria mori."_ The stone doors grind open, and the children file into the room, leaving Harry and Theo standing cold in the corridor, waiting for the rest of the Slytherin table to follow them down. The movement of the students had been sluggish and uncertain, and it had been plain to Harry that most of them had been unwilling to leave the bright warmth of the Great Hall in exchange for the damp, foreboding cold of the dungeons, where anything could be lurking in the shadows.

Theo's hand touches Harry's shoulder, and it is all Harry can do not to flinch as he looks at the other boy. For just a second, he has a vision of Theodore in twenty, thirty years from now, as a rabbi or a teacher himself, and yet when he looks at Theo now, all he sees is a boy. A quiet, serious boy, but a boy nonetheless.

Theodore's expression is grim, but set. "I'll look after the children tonight. I think…" He trails off, momentarily, staring into the ether. "War stories. I don't care for them, but best that we put thoughts of victory in their minds. I find myself uneasy. Even in response to a threat such as He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named… I wouldn't be surprised if we see a draft in the coming years."

"It won't last years," Harry promises, putting his hand over Theo's own and feeling the chill of the other boy's skin, feeling the slight sheen of sweat that has gathered on the back of his hand. "Theo, look at me…" Theo's eyes are shining, and if they weren't so determined, maybe Harry would be able to make out the fear in them. "By next September, he'll be dead. I promise you."

"We oughtn't make promises we can't keep, Harry," Theo murmurs.

"I'm not," Harry says. "I'll kill him – I'll kill them all. And those kids are going to be safe, you hear me?" Theodore looks at him, his eyes uncertain behind the glass of his spectacles, and then he gives a very slow nod.

"I'm a man of faith, Harry," Theo murmurs. "My faith can extend to you." Theo slowly moves away, stepping into the doorway, and Harry looks as the other Fifth Years begin to come down toward the common room, leading the younger students with the Seventh Years bringing up the rear.

"I'm heading to Snape's office," Harry murmurs in Draco's ear, and Draco gives a slow nod of his head.

"Alright," he murmurs. "Will you be long?"

"No more than an hour," Harry replies, and he slips off down the corridor, moving through the darkened halls with no difficulty at all. Five years in this castle, particularly with the aid of the Marauder's Map, has left him comfortable in its winding halls, and he takes a few lesser used corridors to bring him to Snape's office, the door of which is slightly ajar.

Snape is leaning against his desk, and he is slowly patting the thick, white fur of a great beast of a cat Harry has often seen in the dungeons, but has never been able to find out the name or the owner of.

"You're kidding," he says softly. "That thing is yours?"

"Her name is Fantôme," Snape murmurs. "Are you ready to begin?" Harry nods his head. "Close the door."

**ϟ** **~ THE LERNAEAN HYDRA ~** **ϟ**

As the children stand to filter out of the room, Severus remains seated. All of the staff do, each one of them sitting very still in their seats – even Filch isn't throwing himself into his usual, desperate rush to leave the company of the other staffs, and instead slumps in his seat, staring at his own filthy hands.

When the last Hufflepuff slowly shuffles from the room, some ten minutes later, Severus draws his thumb over his own thin, lower lip, and looks at the others. Every single member of staff is silent, staring into space or looking desperately at one another, none of them certain what to say, what they can _do_.

"That was unexpected," Filius says, finally. His squeaky voice is grave. "I know people in the Wizengamot – this, these measures… They aren't what was discussed." Severus presses his lips together, feeling the thin lips thin even further, and he adjusts the set of his cuffs beneath his robes. Even Gibbon looks alarmed, his watery eyes wide, and Severus slowly inhales.

"Any gathering place, that missive said," Poppy says, leaning forward. Albus catches her eye, and gives a grave nod of his head.

"Of course, there would be no reason at all for the Ministry of Magic to believe we had Death Eaters amidst our students or staff," Albus murmurs, and Severus keeps his expression completely neutral, feeling some of the other staff turn to glance at him. "And I should want to protect the privacy of those within Hogwarts…"

"We aren't outside the law, Albus," Severus says, his tone steady. "To resist Aurors would only compound the issue."

"And what would you suggest, Severus?" Minerva demands, her voice quavering. "To allow the Aurors to line the children up in rows, examining their arms in turn?"

"We have no reason to believe it will come to that," Severus says, his tone delicate. "To utilise their powers of interrogation in the street will display the Ministry's power, will show that they do not fear another rise of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, but to utilise them _here_? It would open them up to much criticism, to strike fear into the hearts of children."

"And what of the older students?" Pomona asks softly. "What if— If You-Know-Who were to use these policies to his advantage – to recruit Sixth and Seventh Years…" Severus feels a cool weight within himself as he thinks of the first time he was courted as one of the Dark Lord's Death Eaters – he didn't take the Mark until he was nineteen, but certainly, he had been seventeen when first the suggestion had been floated toward him by Lucius, and some of his classmates were undoubtedly recruited whilst they were as yet at Hogwarts. He thinks of Maxie Caine, and he slowly inhales.

"Let us see how these new policies will unfold," Albus murmurs, his expression a mask of quiet concern. Severus stands from the table, and Minerva reaches for his arm.

"You're going? You don't wish to speak further?"

"I have an appointment," Severus murmurs quietly. "A meeting with a student. My apologies – perhaps we ought put this on the agenda for the next staff meeting, tomorrow night?" There are murmurs of agreement around the table, quiet and reserved, and Severus walks ahead of the others that move to leave, feeling the weight of his own robes feel heavy upon his shoulders. Tabling the matter for later won't fix anything. Hogwarts is still part of the Ministry of Magic's purview, still bound by British law, and yet… Severus knows that if he thinks too much on the issue at hand, for now, that a migraine will make itself known within his skull, and so he pushes it aside.

He is grateful when Fantôme rushes to meet him, and he begins to draw his fingers slowly through the thick, white cloud of her lovely fur, feeling the warmth of her body. Her gaze is grave, and while Severus could not possibly know what exactly she knows and how deep that knowledge is, it is plain that on some level, she is aware that something has happened.

There will be no leaving the castle now. Severus will have to make his appearances in some areas, just to assail suspicion, but there is certainly no way that he can take casual jaunts to Diagon Alley or to Hogsmeade, not when there is the possibility of having his sleeve ripped up…

This is why the Dark Marks had never been common knowledge. They were secret, they were intended to reveal one Death Eater to another, and Severus knows from a thousand attempts that the Mark cannot be hidden, once it brands the flesh. There is no glamour, no charm, that can hide it – Severus has even tried to paint over it with Muggle lipstick and foundation, a trick he had a Gryffindor girl show Lily when she had been considering a tattoo, but the Dark Mark coils and wriggles out from beneath such attempts to paint over it.

It is alive, in a way.

"You're kidding," Potter says from the doorway, and Severus blinks, surprised at the answer to his own internal statement, but Potter's eyes, their green colour bared once more now that the tint in his glasses is gone, are focused upon Fantôme, and not on Severus himself. "That thing is yours?"

"Her name is Fantôme," Severus says softly, gesturing for Potter to close the door. "Are you ready to begin?"

"With that new Ministry order…" Potter says, pushing the door closed, and locking it with a muttered word – that will be where they shall start, Severus things. Silent casting is _vital_. "Professor, that's— It's fascism."

"Yes," Severus agrees. "You seem surprised."

"I always thought it started little by little," Potter says, slowly shaking his head. "Not all at once. And forgive me, but… Well. Fudge doesn't strike me as a dictator."

"Fudge will be dead before the week is out," Severus murmurs. "His death was writ in stone as soon as he put his name to a threat against He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. Mark my words, Potter: it is not Fudge that spearheads this proclamation. It will be another member of the Wizengamot, someone with a lot of power. The next Minister for Magic, I would wager, will be an ex-Auror themselves."

"Eleanor Guinan?" Potter suggests, and Severus gives a slow nod of his head, considering it. Guinan is a hard woman, strict and focused upon her work, and she is already in a position of command – Severus wouldn't be surprised if she _were_ in the running for Minister for Magic.

"A natural choice," Severus murmurs. "But no, we'll see somebody older, somebody who fought in the First War. I would place my money on Rufus Scrimageour, were I a betting man." Potter nods his head, raising his chin and stiffening his jaw, and for just a second, he is the very image of his father. Shorter, but with the same determination in his eyes, the same grim understanding of the war at hand— Severus pushes down the revulsion that burns in his chest. "We will start with non-verbal magic. Something you ought master as soon as possible."

"Non-verbal…" Potter repeats. "One of the Death Eaters commented on it. That I couldn't cast non-verbally."

"You have willpower," Severus reminds him, gesturing for Fantôme to leave them be, and she ignores him, settling down on Severus' desk with her four paws neatly tucked beneath her body, as if she is but a freshly-baked loaf of bread. Severus resists the urge to roll his eyes as he moves away from her. "Non-verbal magic is about the _intent_ of a spell, and you, Potter, have intent in spades."

"Peter Pettigrew could cast non-verbally," Potter says. "Couldn't he?"

"A curious example," Severus murmurs, arching an eyebrow as he goes to one of his cupboards, drawing a single owl feather from a jar. "But yes, so he could. He _had_ to. He used to stammer quite awfully as a boy, and any attempt at saying an incantation aloud would spell doom for all in his vicinity. Muggles would have diagnosed him with an anxiety disorder, I should expect."

"What did wizards diagnose him with?" Potter asks.

"Cowardice." Potter's expression darkens for a moment, and he looks at the feather as Severus sets it down upon the ground before him. "This world is _magical_ , Potter, not perfect."

"You'd never think it, to talk to any of the Purebloods," Potter mutters, and Severus doesn't believe he imagines the slight bitterness in his tone. There, then – he is nothing _like_ his father. "They think the magical world is nothing short of perfect, when everywhere you look, there's holes in logic, there's… It makes no sense, anything we do. And they never seem to _think_ about it."

"They don't know any better," Severus murmurs. "In my time at Hogwarts, I must have had a half-dozen screaming matches with Lucius on the very subject, triggered by everything from our trade policy to the fact that wizards don't wear trousers."

"I can't imagine you screaming," Potter murmurs. He is looking at Severus with a strange warmth in his eyes – something almost like affection – and it makes Severus stiffen in discomfort. "Or him." Grief shines in his eyes alongside the warmth, and Severus feels his own grief coiled within him like some great snake… But for once, it is almost comfortable to talk.

"Mostly it was me screaming," Severus admits. "Lucius would ordinarily remain calm and collected, and distinctly sarcastic." Potter laughs.

"Sounds like me and you." Severus' lips part, and he looks down at the young man, feeling his lungs like weights in his chest, feeling the oddity it is to _breathe_. Potter seems to realise what he's said, and he looks down to the feather, setting his jaw and furrowing his brows. "Okay, take me through his. Do I just say the incantation in my head, or—"

"No," Severus murmurs, leaning back against the desk. "I'll assign you some reading, but in the mean time… Perform the spell as you ordinarily would. I want you to consider the way that it _feels_ , the spell itself – try to be aware of the magic as it is channelled through your wand, the way that this specific energy _feels_." Potter stares at him as if Severus is speaking in the tongue of the Sumerians. "Just _do_ it," Severus presses, crossing his arms tightly over his chest, and Potter looks to the feather.

Slowly, deliberately, he swishes and flicks the length of holly in his hands, and he says, "Wingardium leviosa!" The feather slowly rises into the air, and Severus can see the pinched look upon Potter's face, as if he is struggling to swallow something especially bitter.

"Are you alright?" Severus asks, dispassionately.

"I don't feel anything," Potter says. "It's just… It's just _magic_ , it all feels the same." Severus stares at him, arching an eyebrow. "Don't _look_ at me like that. It's like— I get what you're _saying_ , but it's like you're glaring at me for not being able to tell one shade of blue from another one, and I'm only seeing in black and white."

"Come here," Severus instructs, and Potter does, letting the feather drop slowly to the ground. Fantôme takes the opportunity as it is offered, and leaps from the desk to bat it about the floor. Severus drags up the cuff of his right robe sleeve, bearing his bare arm to the air. Potter stares down at it, at the expanse of sallow, scarred skin, and Severus says, "Grasp my forearm."

"Why?"

"Because I told you to." Potter hesitates, but then draws up his own robe sleeve – not so stupid as he looks – and obeys. Potter's flesh is warm to the touch, and Severus can feel the steady beat of his heart beneath the surface, feel the blood slowly moving in his veins. Severus is aware of how much the boy is growing into a man – his arms, _mercifully_ , are not so skinny as once they were, when he was still resting at the leisure of his aunt and uncle. Severus' own arms, of course, are thin beneath the muscle of them, and Potter's hand could almost close about Severus' wrist— "I'm going to use Legilimency to show you what I mean," Severus says quietly. "I will form a momentary mental link between us, so that you can see through my eyes, feel as _I_ feel, and I will levitate the feather."

"Will it hurt?" Potter asks, his green eyes full of innocence. Severus stares at him.

"What? Why would it hurt?"

"I don't know, it sounds weird, it sounds like something that could hurt."

"It's not going to hurt," Severus snaps, and Potter laughs, his innocence fading, and Severus feels a flush of burning blood make itself known in his cheeks – the boy had _deceived_ him. Severus smacks him upside the head with his free hand, but Potter only laughs harder, his grip momentarily loosening on Severus' arm. "Do not _joke_ with me. We are not _friends_."

"We're allies," Potter says placatingly. "Yes, I know, I know." His eyes defocus for just a moment, staring into the middle distance, and then he looks directly at Severus, his grip tightening on Severus' arm. "Okay, I've relaxed my shields a little… Go."

**ϟ** **~ THE LERNAEAN HYDRA ~** **ϟ**

Snape smells better than one would think. Underneath the chemical tint of the potions he works on, which have a bitter tang that reminds Harry of the dentist, there is the rich scent of dark coffee, bitter and all-encompassing, and the scent of ink.

It's weird, to be so close to him, to be _touching_ him – Snape has always come across as the least human of the staff at Hogwarts, the least physically _there_. Sometimes, even Professor Binns seems more grounded in the physical realm than Snape himself, who can move without making a sound, who always exudes a dangerous energy. And here Harry is, holding tight to his arm and feeling how _cold_ Snape is. Merlin, the guy must have the circulation of a dead snake.

"Ready?" Snape asks, quietly, and Harry nods his head. " _Legilimens_."

It's a weird sensation.

Suddenly, it's like the two of them are underwater, the world around them seeming thick and liquid-heavy, his vision swimming, and Harry coughs, feeling like he can't breathe, but the discomfort passes. He is aware of Snape's fingers, scarred and long and bony, gripping against the meat of his forearm, and he is aware of the way he grips at Snape's own arm, how cool he is to the touch—

" _Wingardium leviosa_ ," Snape says, and Harry sees the shift of his wand from the corner of his eye, sees Fantôme sailing through the air like a cloud, away from the point of Snape's wand: closing his eyes to distract himself from the sight, he feels the way energy coils in the air at the base of Snape's wrist, and it's—

"Oh, shit," Harry says, and it really _is_ like seeing the world in colour for the first time. He _feels_ the charm, feels its sweet, airy coil against Snape's palm, feels its easy, featherlight nature, and he feels the spell itself, as if an invisible finger is pushing the feather up and into the air, like a teacher helping a ballerina hold a pose.

"You see?" Snape murmurs, his voice low and sonorous, and Harry shivers.

"Yeah, yeah, I see." All at once, the water vision fades away, and Severus breaks the contact, drawing his sleeve back down his arm. Harry sways a little on his feet, but he grabs hold of the sensation of the charm, and he turns to the feather. _"Wingardium leviosa_ ," he says, and this time… Yeah. Yeah, he _almost_ feels it, the way that the charm feels, but—

"It will get easier," Snape murmurs quietly. "To be aware of magic as an _entity_ is a difficult thing, but I felt it would be the easiest mechanism for you to comprehend non-verbal magic. Want to try it?"

Harry nods, and he lets the feather slowly move to the ground.

Pointing his wand at the feather, he concentrates on the way his wand swishes and flicks through the air, trying to take hold of that sensation – airy, graceful – and thinks hard, _Wingardium Leviosa!_ The feather is still for a second, but then is nudged awkwardly from the ground. It only lasts for a moment, but Harry exhales in relief, feeling himself grin.

"Okay, you have to admit," Harry says. "For a Fifth Year, _first try_ at non-verbal magic, and I—"

"I will be impressed when you defeat the Dark Lord," Snape says primly. "And not before."

"I've already done that," Harry points out, and Snape _scoffs_.

"If he gets back up, Potter, it doesn't count." For a second, Harry stares at the other man, and then Snape's lip – almost imperceptibly – gives a twitch of good humour. Harry grins.

"Thank you," he says, genuinely. "For this. I know it must be… Hard. To have to think about me and about what Dumbledore needs at once— but it means a lot." Snape draws himself up to his full – though not prodigious – height, and he shifts the way his robes settle on his body. He's _uncomfortable_ , Harry realises, with being thanked – but then, what isn't Snape uncomfortable with?

"Try again," Snape instructs.

**ϟ** **~ THE LERNAEAN HYDRA ~** **ϟ**

"Hey," Draco says as Harry steps into their dormitory. "What did he say?"

"Not much," Harry says, shrugging his shoulders, and he kicks his boots off. Draco is already in bed, curled comfortably under his covers in a pair of blue pyjamas, and although the candles are still lit, Harry can see that Draco is just on the cusp of falling to sleep, his eyes half-closing. "We started non-verbal magic."

"Really?" Draco asks, his enthusiasm coming through despite his obvious fatigue. Harry blows out two out of three of the candles, and he moves forward, hovering at the side of Draco's bed for a second. Draco is smiling faintly, his eyes glinting from the candle on his bedside table. "You know, Harry, if you survive to your OWLs, you'll definitely get Os if you do everything non-verbally." Harry laughs, quietly, and he blows out the candle.

Sliding into his own bed, he lies on his side, and he feels the strange ache in his arm, from doing new magic – always a pleasant ache, always something that makes him feel like he's really making _progress_.

Really, seeing magic like this… It isn't so different to learning the Patronus Charm.

He is still smiling in satisfaction as he feels himself drift off to sleep.

**ϟ** **~ THE LERNAEAN HYDRA ~** **ϟ**

"Severus, before you go in," Bartemius murmurs, and Severus exhales as Barty crowds him back against the wall, his hands on either side of Severus' face. He glances to the corridor, feeling himself stiffen, but Gibbon has already made his way into the hall, and Severus sets his jaw.

"You are too bold," Severus whispers, curling his lip. "Were you a _Gryffindor_?"

"I merely wanted to _say_ ," Barty murmurs, his breath devastatingly hot against Severus' lips, and Severus despises himself for the way he wants to surge into it, for the way he wants to catch Barty's mouth in his own. How many times has he dreamt of him, in the past days? Every morning, he wakes with the shadow of Crouch looming over him, until Severus is free and away from his bed, and can occupy his mind with work instead. Stupid. _Stupid_. For years, he has comfortably rested in his celibacy, and Crouch has shattered his turn away from sexual appetites like glass, and to what end? That Maxie Caine might submit a _press_ report without Barty touching _him?_ "I'm ready when you are."

Severus forces himself to chuckle, darkly. "Wait until the meeting is _over_ , Barty," he advises, and he ducks under the other man's head, slipping into the hall.

The Dark Lord's gaze rests on Severus for just a moment, and he _smiles_ , the expression showing a parody of warmth. His hair is growing back, Severus sees, coming thick from his scalp where for so long it was bald and slightly scaly…

"Having a tete-a-tete of your own, were you, Severus, Bartemius?" the Dark Lord asks, his voice an amused purr, and Severus delicately coughs against his wrist.

"Remarkable indeed, my lord, that a man should require assistance on the finer points of brewing at _his_ age," Severus replies archly, and a few of the Death Eaters titter as Barty laughs, the sound intentionally ugly. When he shows his teeth, however, his face is nothing but handsome – darkly handsome, but handsome nonetheless.

"Severus thinks much of his ego, my lord," Barty says, sliding back into a seat. "He should proclaim himself a _master_ , but will balk at a student." More laughter, but no more than Severus had garnered: the two of them have equal status amidst the Inner Circle, and are certainly high in the Dark Lord's estimations – high enough that their bickering only makes his inhuman lips quirk into a smirk instead of a snarl.

"Come come, children," he says snidely. "To _business_."

And _Merlin_ , Severus thinks. What business it _is_.


End file.
